UNIVERSIDAD AUTÓNOMA DE MADRID
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFÍA Y LETRAS
DEPARTAMENTO DE FILOLOGÍA INGLESA
TESIS DOCTORAL
NEGOTIATING THE THIRD SPACE IN THE ARAB
AMERICAN FICTION OF DIANA ABU-JABER AND
LAILA HALABY
INÉS KAROUI GHOUAIEL
DIRIGIDA POR:
DRA. DÑA. EULALIA PIÑERO GIL
MADRID, 2015
UNIVERSIDAD AUTÓNOMA DE MADRID
FACULTAD DE FILOSOFÍA Y LETRAS
DEPARTAMENTO DE FILOLOGÍA INGLESA
NEGOTIATING THE THIRD SPACE IN THE ARAB
AMERICAN FICTION OF DIANA ABU-JABER AND
LAILA HALABY
TESIS DOCTORAL PRESENTADA POR INÉS KAROUI GHOUAIEL
PARA LA OBTENCIÓN DEL GRADO DE DOCTOR
DIRIGIDA POR LA DRA. DÑA. EULALIA PIÑERO GIL
PROFESORA TITULAR DE UNIVERSIDAD
MADRID, 2015
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to express my deepest gratitude to many people who generously
encouraged me through the years to develop my research in fruitful ways and to
accomplish this doctoral dissertation. I am indebted to my advisor Dr. Eulalia Piñero Gil
for her insightful comments and continuous encouragement through every stage of the
dissertation. The time and energy she provided and her detailed comments were
instrumental in helping me develop and revise each chapter constructively. Special
thanks to Ibis Gómez-Vega, Northern Illinois University, for her generosity and all the
references on Arab American literature she provided me with. I would like also to thank
Steve Redwood for his patience and attention to detail in his reading. He greatly
contributed to the shaping of this dissertation thanks to his thorough revision.
I am also deeply thankful for my family in Tunisia, without whom this
dissertation would never have been accomplished. The importance that my parents
Abderrazak Karoui and Faouzia Ghouaiel place on education, and their unflagging love
and encouragement sustained me through the difficult times. They have always believed
in the importance of providing their four daughters the opportunity to receive a good
education and allow them to take their own decisions. I am grateful to my sister Amel
for her help and support during the last phase of this doctoral thesis. Special thanks to
my sisters Syrine and Wissem for their encouragement and generosity. I am also
thankful to my nephew Adham for being a source of peace and happiness.
The accomplishment of this dissertation could not have been possible without
the care and attention of Aldo Rebolledo whose encouraging and positive attitude
constantly inspired me. Thank you for your unflagging emotional support, patience and
confidence through the years.
Finally, a special thank to my friend Samira Trabelsi for her beautiful friendship,
constant encouragement, generosity and patience.
‫إلى روح جدتي الغالية ‪،،،‬‬
‫آسفة على التأخير‪ ،‬كان بودي أن تشاركينا هذه الفرحة عندما كنت بيننا‬
‫إلى والديا العزيزين فوزية وعبدالرزاق ‪،،،‬‬
‫ها أنا عند وعدي‪ ،‬شكرا على كل الحب والدعم‬
“...‫ حرة تماما في عالمي هذا الصغير‬...‫” أنا حرة‬
‫ مذكرات طبيبة‬،‫نوال السعداوي‬
“Remember for yourself and for your tomorrow…Remember to make your day
new and old, but be sure to think of something you never thought of before.”
Laila Halaby, West of the Jordan
“‘Let the beauty we love be what we do.
There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.’”
Diana Abu-Jaber, Crescent
CONTENTS
Introduction
Chapter 1: The Arab American Experience in the United States of America
1
15
1.1 Early Arab American Literature
15
1.2 Second Generation of Arab American writers
39
1.3 The Emergence of an Arab American Consciousness
45
1.4 Embracing Arab American Ethnicity
54
Chapter 2: Theorizing Contemporary Arab American Literature
61
2.1 Defining the Third Space
61
2.2 Redefining the Third Space According to Arab American Discourse
67
Chapter 3: The Narratives of Displacement in Arabian Jazz by Diana Abu-Jaber
and West of the Jordan by Laila Halaby
3.1 Arabian Jazz
89
89
3.1.1 Fragile and Displaced Female Arab American Identities in the
Making: The Poor White Community Entourage and the Absence
of the Mother Figure
89
3.1.2 De-mythologizing the Old Country and the Burden of
Representation
106
3.1.3 Matussem: an Arab Father in America
121
3.1.4 The sisters: The Nurse and the Dreamer
133
3.2 West of the Jordan
154
3.2.1 Mawal: The Memory of Palestine
156
3.2.2 Soraya: The Rebel
170
3.2.3 Khadija: The Shy one
185
3.2.4 Hala: The Bridge
198
Chapter 4: Crescent and the Creative Strategies of Resistance
219
4.1 Crescent’s Engagement with the Issue of the Image of Arabs
in the United States
221
4.2 Nadia’s Café: The re-creation of home in the ethnic borderland
235
4.3 Eating Up Differences and Cooking Up Stories
245
Chapter 5: Once in a Promised Land: The Collapse of the American Dream
269
5.1 Embracing America
274
5.2 The Collapse of Jassim’s and Salwa’s American Dream
284
5.2.1 Salwa: Miss Made in America
287
5.2.2 Jassim: The Frustrated Perfectionist
299
Conclusions
319
Summary in Spanish
331
Bibliography
341
INTRODUCTION
15
16
INTRODUCTION
Arab American literature is a burgeoning field struggling to carve a space of its
own within the mosaic of America’s ethnic literary scene. Its tradition dates back to the
beginning of the twentieth century with the arrival of early Arab émigré writers. This
literary genre has been shaped by the different phases it has gone through, together with
the varied circumstances and historical events which have affected its course. Arab
American literature mirrors the historical, social and political development of the
American communities with Arab descent in the United States. In this way,
contemporary Arab American discourse is the result of more than a century of Middle
Eastern presence in America.
Aware of their cultural background, most contemporary Arab American writers
focus on ethnicity and proclaim hybridity as the essence of a hyphenated Arab
American identity. This increasing awareness leads them to explore the spaces situated
on each side of the hyphen in their literary work, as they insist on situating the Arab
American experience within its American multicultural context. These writers consider
that they are entrusted with the mission of the self-representation of their community in
order to do away with the widespread misrepresentations that dominate the perception
of Arabs in the United States. Possessing a solid grounding in American identity, these
writers express their attachment to the Arab homeland, while avoiding sentimentalism
and nostalgia.
When I first started to become interested in Arab American literary production
in the late 1990’s, I was disappointed because of the absence of any appreciable body of
scholarship approaching this emerging literature, in spite of its acquiring a growing
mainstream audience. But this disappointment quickly turned into excitement at having
1
discovered a promising field which had hardly been studied at all in academic research
in the United States and especially in Spain. Needless to say, the beginning was very
hard and even painful, due to the difficulty of securing access to the limited body of
criticism on Arab American fiction that did exist. I could only find a few short reviews
and articles about some literary works. In spite of that, I did not hesitate to take the
decision to dedicate my PhD dissertation to the exploration of the works of Diana AbuJaber and Laila Halaby, whom I consider two of the most important figures in the Arab
American literary scene. Abu-Jaber was the first contemporary Arab American writer
that I heard about when I began my search for a possible literary corpus by American
writers of Arab descent. My study of her fiction is here restricted to her first two novels
because the Arab American perspective is no longer central to her later work. AbuJaber’s novel Arabian Jazz (1993) is commonly regarded as “the first mainstream Arab
American novel”,1 and was thus an obvious choice to include in my thesis. Her second
novel Crescent (2003) is a richly layered work, which reflects the writer’s hybrid voice
and transnational concerns.
Laila Halaby was the second major writer I discovered in the Arab American
literary tradition, and my decision to include in this dissertation her novels West of the
Jordan (2003) and Once in a Promised Land (2007) stems from my great admiration for
her. I believe that these two novels can be ranked among the best contemporary Arab
American works of fiction thanks to the author’s poetic prose in the depiction of her
characters and their stories. Both writers belong to families with mixed backgrounds,
American and Jordanian with Palestinian origin, which further encouraged me to work
on their narratives because of my interest in their literary depiction of Palestine, and the
Shalal-Esa, Andrea. “Clearing the Path for Mainstream Arab American Literature.” Al Jadid Magazine,
Vol. 16, Nº62 (2010).
< http://www.aljadid.com/content/clearing-path-mainstream-arab-american-literature>
1
2
question of displacement and exile. I think that Abu-Jaber and Halaby are especially
prominent names in a generation of Arab American writers who have succeeded in
presenting the stories of their hyphenated characters to mainstream America. Their
narrative questions the widespread misrepresentations of Arabs in American popular
culture, as well as the preconceived notions of what constitutes Arab American
subjectivity. They present, instead, their own perception of individual and collective
Arab American identities. They thus portray a diverse collection of characters and
stories, which together provide a perfect stage for the negotiation of Arab American
subjectivity in the United States.
For this reason, I have made use of Homi Bhabha’s concept of the Third Space
as the theoretical framework for this research. I believe that this choice distinguishes my
approach from other studies in the field. As far as I know, Bhabha’s theory has not been
used as a theoretical starting point to approach the selected novels for this study, or
Arab American literature in general. Trying to find a space of its own within the context
of multiethnic America, Arab American literature has been studied according to many
theoretical concepts as is the case of the rest of minority literatures. I consider that the
Third Space theory is especially relevant to dealing with the novels by Abu-Jaber and
Halaby because they express the very idea of the in-between space, which allows hybrid
individuals to create a place where they can articulate their cultural difference. The
writers perfectly illustrate the elaboration of negotiated strategies of selfhood for the
construction of individual and communal identities. In this light, the use of Bhabha’s
theory in this thesis is intended to portray the novels’ deconstruction of essentialized
frameworks of identity through the creation of an anti-essentialist Arab American
subjectivity, which is unstable, complex, multilayered and deeply rooted in the Arab
American experience.
3
As exemplified in the different chapters of this dissertation, the complexity of
the Arab American experience is mirrored in the literary production of the members of
the community. Instead of being labeled exclusively either Arab or American, Arab
American literature occupies an in-between space between both worlds. It is a hybrid
genre standing right at the hyphen as it borrows from both literary traditions in order to
shape its own perspective. It displays thematic links and similarities with multiethnic
literatures in the United States. Therefore, while this project intends to delineate the
transnational connections of this literature to the Arab world, it also aims to contribute
to the efforts to carve out a space for Arab American literature in the U. S. literary
canon. Despite the emergence of an important body of Arab American literature in the
last two decades, there is still, as I have said, a shortage of extensive critical material
with which to establish theoretical and methodological approaches for the study of this
growing field. Hence, my dissertation hopes to be a small contribution to the lack of
literary criticism of this genre, and thus help to fill this critical gap. It also intends to
take part in the discussions addressing the issues related to current Arab American
concerns, developing, in this way, my own approach in this field
In this project, my intention is to analyze some of the major themes and issues
addressed by most contemporary Arab American writers, including, of course, AbuJaber and Halaby, and thus provide an addition to the attempts to situate Arab American
literature within the broader spectrum of American letters. Moreover, I highlight the
links that writers with an Arab background are extending to other minority groups such
as Asian Americans, African Americans and Latinos, among others. In this way, this
dissertation aims to shed light on how these writers transcend ethnic boundaries through
the creation of a minority discourse providing a space for interethnic communalism. The
novels selected for this study portray the heterogeneous nature of the Arab American
4
selfhood, emphasized by the complexity and diversity of national origins, religions,
dialects, and also personal experiences. At the same time, they insist on its
Americanness.
The first chapter of this dissertation is dedicated to the study of the Arab
American literary tradition starting from the beginning of the twentieth-century to the
present. I consider that it is an important contribution to this field of studies, as it traces
the history of Arab immigration to the United States and explores the different phases of
the Arab presence in that country. In my analysis of each historical phase, I try to depict
the literature of the time produced by the members of the community. The development
of this literary tradition mirrors the patterns of Arab American history and the changing
contexts that pushed the community's writers into creating new spaces to make their
voices heard. This chapter is aimed to stand as a historical and literary framework for
the whole dissertation. I start with early Arab immigrants from Greater Syria, who
began to reach the American shores by the end of the nineteenth century. I analyze the
journey of the Arab peddlers who managed to set up their own family businesses and
ended up being assimilated into the American middle-class society and embracing its
standards, while they simultaneously struggled for white racial status. This period
witnessed the emergence of the émigré writers who wrote in Arabic and English and
mostly belonged to the Mahjar literary movement such as Kahlil Gibran (1883-1931),
Ameen Rihani (1876-1931), and Mikhail Naimy (1889-1988), who formed the New
York Pen League in 1920. Heirs of two cultural and literary traditions, they yearned to
play the role of cultural intermediary as they sought not only to create philosophical
meeting points between East and West, but also to fuse them together. The obsession of
the Arab American literature of the time to prove itself worthy in the American context
can be perceived in the autobiographies published then, like Abraham Rihbany’s, for
5
instance, which used Christian identity to distance Syrians from Islam, and therefore to
highlight their affinity with the West.
The second generation of Arab American writers came of age in a period when
the community had been going through decades of assimilation, and after the rupture of
communications with the homeland because of U.S. policies limiting the number of
immigrants until 1965. Consequently, the children of the first generation Syrian
immigrants did not speak Arabic and had a diminished awareness of their Arab heritage.
The works of writers like William Blatty and Vance Bourjaily embody the culmination
of the assimilative process, showing a deep ambivalence toward Arab ethnicity and
establishing a distance from their Arab identity.
The second and third waves of Arab immigration to the United States,
respectively from 1945 to 1967 and from 1967 to the present, changed the composition
of the Arab American presence in America, as they included large numbers of highly
educated professionals as well as students at American universities from different parts
of the Arab world. These immigrants proved to be less likely to assimilate because they
comprised highly politicized individuals with strong Arab national identities, which
helped raise an ethnic consciousness among the Americanized generations. This
emerging consciousness was accelerated by the events taking place in the Arab
homeland at that time, especially the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. The newer and older Arab
American communities realized the necessity of coming together, united by their
opposition to the Zionist project in the region, and by their disappointment at the U. S.
official support of Israel at the expense of the indigenous Arab population of Palestine.
The consequent increasing hostility and anti-Arab bias in American media, marking the
beginning of the marginalization of the group, led the members of these communities to
start identifying themselves as “Arab.” The rise of this consciousness was paralleled by
6
the surfacing of an important body of Arab American literature oriented rather towards
poetry, and waving between the ethnic discourse and themes independent of ethnic
perspectives. This literary production contributed to setting the stage for a full-blown
flourishing of Arab American literature during the last decade of the twentieth century
and the beginning of the twenty-first century.
The third phase of the Arab American literary tradition has witnessed a
significant shift towards prose writing, accompanied by an engagement with ethnicity
and the racialization of the Arab American experience. A new generation of Arab
American writers has been publishing a growing literary body, more sophisticated in
scope and wider in content, aiming to reinforce their tradition in its American context.
Contemporary Arab American writers are aware of the vulnerability of their
community, especially after the September 11 terrorist attacks, which strongly
reinforced the negative stereotypes against Arab Americans, concealing their
complexity and diversity. In a time when even the idea of their belonging to the country
is being questioned, these writers seek to reflect their community’s quest to regain its
own voice and achieve self-representation in order to defend their interests as American
citizens and also to defend their Arab heritage.
Chapter two is aimed at providing a theoretical framework for this dissertation,
in which I try to define Homi Bhabha’s concept of the Third Space, as developed in his
book The Location of Culture (1994), in order to redefine it afterwards in terms of the
Arab American discourse. Starting from the idea of hybridity as a mixed location where
individuals do not belong to any unified or stable position, making their subjectivity
multiple and unstable, the scholar challenges ethnocentric notions of selfhood and
identity. He argues that identity, individually or en masse, is never pre-given because it
must be enunciated. In this respect, he coins the term the Third Space for the concept
7
which “constitutes the discursive conditions of enunciation” (1994: 55). These
discursive conditions of enunciation ensure “that the meaning and symbols of culture
have no primordial unity or fixity; that even the same signs can be appropriated,
translated, rehistoricized, and read anew” (55). Therefore, the Third Space gives hybrid
subjects the opportunity to maintain a process of translation and negotiation through the
creation of a space where they can articulate and negotiate their cultural difference.
Contemporary Arab American literature embodies to a large extent this idea as it
presents an in-between space approaching the past and cultural origins in order to
establish a constant dialogue and negotiation. In this part, I try to trace the articulation
of hybridity in the works of some contemporary American writers and poets with Arab
origins, such as Lawrence Joseph, Suheir Hammad, Randa Jarrar and Rabih
Alameddine. I then dedicate the final part of this chapter to a thorough biographical
introduction to Diana Abu-Jaber and Laila Halaby, where I explore links between their
own personal itineraries, as hybrid individuals, and their creative writings which
provide a relevant site for the negotiation of the Third Space.
The third chapter examines Arabian Jazz (1993) by Diana Abu-Jaber and West
of the Jordan (2003) by Laila Halaby in two separate sections. This chapter is meant to
analyze the writers’ approach to the construction of female Arab American identities,
through the study of the identification options offered to their female characters.
Situating her novel in a poor white neighborhood in upstate New York, Abu-Jaber
traces the development of the identification process of two Jordanian American sisters,
Jemorah and Melvina. I will examine the sisters’ journey within an alienating frame
which problematizes their difficulties of maladjustment and double identity. The early
experience of loss of the mother figure is another important element contributing to the
complexity of the girls’ situation, because it has not only engendered the displacement
8
of their imaginary, but also their being rejected by the American half of the family. The
presence of the Jordanian part of the family is also analyzed under the scope of what I
consider Abu-Jaber’s attempt to de-mythologize the homeland, mainly through the
character of Aunt Fatima, who struggles to reproduce the oppressive models of her
idealized ethnic past through her nieces. In addition, I shed light on the novel’s
depiction of a hybridized version of Arab American masculinity through the father
figure of Matussem, who makes of jazz a sort of soundtrack for his ongoing process of
negotiation as a man and as a father. In the middle of all of this, Melvina, the full-time
nurse, and Jemorah, the dreamer, are required to sort out their complex process of
identity construction.
The second section of this chapter is devoted to the analysis of Halaby’s West of
the Jordan, which presents the narratives of displacement of four teenage cousins with
Palestinian origin in a cycle of voices. Each chapter they narrate is the site where they
expose their identities-in-the-making, whether as Arab or Arab American women,
taking into account the multiplicity of their personal, cultural and economic conditions
and circumstances. This part will trace the different negotiation processes followed by
the teenagers during their journey of self-identification in America and also in Palestine.
Mawal’s experience is the first to be depicted, as she is the only cousin who has
remained in Palestine. The three others, Soraya, Khadija and Hala, have to negotiate the
patterns of their hyphenated subjectivity in their American context. In this way, this
section examines the unheard stories told by Halaby in order to shed light on the
heterogeneity of the experiences of Palestinian and Palestinian American women.
Chapter four, dedicated to the study of Diana Abu-Jaber’s Crescent, offers a
close analysis of the suggested creative strategies of resistance to the mainstream
portrayal of Arabs in the United States. Focusing on the novelist’s commitment to this
9
issue of the image of Arabs, new strategies of representations are analyzed. This chapter
examines Abu-Jaber’s deconstruction of the generalized terrorist label associated with
Arab individuals. She depicts instead the image of Arab urbane intellectuals and
scholars, which is not very present in the American imagination, accompanied by a
wide range of references to Middle Eastern culture, especially literature and music. The
writer also provides an interesting image of a humanized Iraq, highlighting its historical
and cultural heritage. Afterwards, I probe the in-between spaces provided by the novel
where the hybrid characters articulate their selfhood and search for strategies of
negotiation. The Arab restaurant functions not only as a space where home is re-created
on the ethnic borderland, but also as a territory of cultural negotiations, mapping the
complexities of the ethnic components of American society. In this same line, I
investigate the novel’s portrayal of food as a human connector bridging differences
within and between ethnic communities.
The last chapter of this dissertation studies Laila Halaby’s Once in a Promised
Land (2007), which is one of the first Arab American fictional works to address the
September 11 terrorist attacks and their direct consequences on the lives of many Arabs
and Arab American people in the United States. The novelist focuses on the aftermath
of these events through her depiction of the notion of the American dream from an Arab
American perspective in an age of an accelerated racialization and a discriminatory
profiling of people with a Middle Eastern background. The chapter examines the pursuit
of this dream through the experience of an Arab American couple, who have chosen to
embrace America’s consumerist culture and enjoy their seemingly bright prospects in
the American Promised Land at the expense of their Arab traditions. I go on to trace the
steps in the downfall of each one of them after their lives are impinged on by the
terrorist attacks, provoking their alienation not only from one another but also from the
10
American lifestyle they have adopted for years. Halaby portrays the displacement
suffered by the couple in a country which starts to question their very sense of
belonging to the American community, leading to the collapse of their marriage, and
converting their American dream into a nightmare.
This dissertation, therefore, studies contemporary Arab American writers’ deconstruction of essentialized frameworks of their community’s subjectivity and the
negotiation of an Arab American Third Space within the context of multiethnic
America. The novels I have selected are those which I think best illustrate the course of
contemporary Arab American narrative. They provide a stage for their hyphenated
characters to explore their marginality and otherness, and to reinforce their diverse and
heterogeneous experiences in their American context. They bring into focus the crucial
role played by Arab American literature in consolidating the community through the
attempts to illustrate and record the divergent and multitudinous concerns of its
members. My hope is that this dissertation reflects and demonstrates these concerns,
and thus contributes to fill the critical gap in the field.
11
12
CHAPTER 1
13
14
CHAPTER I
THE ARAB AMERICAN EXPERIENCE IN THE UNITED STATES OF
AMERICA
Although Arab American literary tradition dates back to the turn of the 20th
century, it has only recently shown signs of coming into its own, and therefore hoping
to be recognized as part of the US ethnic literary landscape. The last two decades have
witnessed the emergence of new writers and voices, to the delight of Arab American
scholars who, according to Evelyn Shakir, “have been waiting a long time for poems
and stories that make myth of (and so make real) our experience and that of our
immigrant ancestors” (1996: 3). The development of Arab American literature mirrors
the patterns of Arab American history, and the changing contexts that pushed the
community's writers into creating new spaces to make their voices heard. In this
chapter, I will try to trace the three distinct phases of Arab American literature.
1.1 Early Arab American literature
The story of Arab American literature started with the first wave of Arab
immigrants who reached the American shores as early as the 1880’s, when an
emigration wave started from the Ottoman-ruled region of “Greater Syria”, including
Mount Lebanon and the surrounding provinces of Syria and Palestine, toward the New
World. Probably the first Arabs to discover the economic opportunities in the United
States were the Christian tradesmen who participated in the Philadelphia International
Exposition in 1876, encouraged by the Ottoman Sultan to exhibit Syrian wares. Their
successful trip and enthusiastic reports helped stimulate a widespread migratory
15
movement all over the country. Most of these early immigrants were mountain-village
Christians escaping military service – imposed by the Turkish government on Christian
as well as Muslim subjects – and evidently seeking economic opportunities. Only a few
thousand young Muslims took part in this emigration adventure, discouraged by the fear
of being unable to maintain their Islamic traditions in a Christian society. For the first
several years, these immigrants were identified as Turks as they were subjects of the
Ottoman Empire. These immigrants despised their Ottoman overseers, however, and
preferred to identify themselves as Syrian. Many young Syrians found their way to the
New World, and soon they were followed by married men and families. With few
exceptions, they considered themselves “sojourners” whose objective was to make
money and then go back home “to enjoy the status and privileges that money would
bring.” Indeed, “emigration was generally a family venture and was financed by family
resources. It was considered an investment whose return would be both wealth and
prestige when the emigrant returned to his native village” (Naff 1983: 14).
Unskilled and often illiterate, many of these early Christian Arab immigrants
engaged in peddling for two or three years before returning home with a financial stake
large enough to permit them to buy more land in their ancestral villages or to set up
their own shops. Entire family groups went to America to work side by side, as peddling
required little English or capital, and it was organized by fellow Arabs who operated as
suppliers, extended credits and showed newcomers the routes. “Peddling drew young
men and women from villages in groups of up to sixty or more, allowing the network of
transit services to be formed and stimulating a Syrian industry of manufacturers,
importers, and wholesalers to supply their needs” (Naff 1983: 16). These early arrivals
established a model for the residence and assimilation of later Arab immigrants. The
later arrivals settled along the Arab peddlers’ routes, establishing trading networks in
16
the cities and small towns across the United States. Peddling was a lifestyle which, in
addition to accumulating capital, accelerated assimilation because it provided ample
opportunities to learn English and mix with the local populace, and therefore helped the
Arab immigrants acquire new values and enthusiastically embrace American standards,
and even develop the idea of settling permanently in the United States. This acquired
sense of permanence led Syrians to settle down later in widely dispersed communities
across the country, where many opened family businesses and retail shops. Peddling
could – and often did – lead to economic prosperity. Backpacks gave way to trucks,
later a small dry goods store, then to a department store and, perhaps, a chain of stores.
As Naff states, “given the economic opportunities and the system of values in the
United States, Syrians became success-oriented free-enterprisers” (1983: 15).
Alixa Naff sustains that early Arab immigrants identified themselves with
“religiously self-segregated neighborhoods and quarters in villages, towns and cities of
the old country” (1985: 63). This “village mindedness” encouraged factionalism within
the ranks of the immigrant community, a situation that prevented it from establishing a
solid identity, and ultimately hampered its development into a single ethnic group.
However, fragmentation gave rise to a multitude of publications, each championing the
causes, interests and ideological leanings of some segment of the community. The
sojourners, therefore, developed a diasporan consciousness reflected in their newspapers
which were highly sectarian and political, and oriented towards events in the Middle
East. Competition between these often short-lived papers was keen. Kawkab Amirka
(The Star of America) was the first Arabic-language newspaper established in North
America, and which came into existence in New York in 1892. The paper “did not
espouse a religious bias” and remained loyal to the Ottoman Empire, perhaps because of
the [founder’s] family’s Damascene origin and Eastern Orthodox Christian faith” (Naff
17
1983: 7). Naoum Mokarzal founded in 1898 a newspaper called Al-Hoda (Guidance), in
order to oppose the policy of the publishers of Kawkab Amirka, and “to serve the cause
of a Christian, Maronite-dominated Lebanese nation under French tutelage, independent
of the Ottoman Empire (Naff 1983: 7). Mir’at al-Gharb (Mirror of the West) was
founded in 1899 and voiced the Syrian Orthodox and anti-Ottoman Arabism. The Druze
founded Al Bayan (The News) in 1910. These papers did not discourage the
community’s sectarian division, each claiming to be the best representative of its sect in
this “temporary” residence. On the other hand, these ethnic newspapers encouraged
assimilation and good citizenship of Arab immigrants in the US.
While peddling had a key role in the development of a sense of permanence
among early Arab immigrants, World War I, according to Michael Suleiman, was a
turning point in the history of the Arab American community. The “people who were in
but not part of American society” (1999: 4), became increasingly cut off from events in
their homelands, and the whole community had to fall back on its own resources. Only
after World War I did “the Arabs in the United States become truly an Arab American
community” (Sulaiman 1994: 43). They realized they were unlikely to ever return back
to their homelands, which forced them to address crucial questions about their identity
as Arab Americans, and their relationship with America. This awareness speeded up the
assimilation process and led to decreased sectarian conflicts, and also increased calls for
unity, and more participation in the American political process. During World War I,
many enlisted in the American army or joined war efforts, such as buying liberty bonds.
The experience enhanced the community’s sense of patriotism and made them feel they
were now part of American society. They started “to imitate their neighbors and to seek
their approval. They became citizens, bought homes, and followed the middle-class
18
course out of old neighborhoods into better ones and ultimately into the suburbs.” (Naff
1983: 18)
The Americanization process was complicated by the racial definitions of
American identity which threatened to exclude Arabs who sought assimilation in the US
by claiming their right to be categorized as white citizens. The Naturalization Act of
1790 had granted the right of citizenship to what it termed “free white persons.”
However, the definition of white became the subject of intense debate. Naff states that
by 1899 the Bureau of Immigration had begun “to distinguish Syrians and Palestinians
by ‘race’ from other Turkish subjects, considering them Caucasian” (1985: 109). But
after 1906, immigrants from western Asia, including Arabs, became caught up in new
naturalization laws basing eligibility for citizenship on non-Asiatic identity. In a series
of court cases called “prerequisite cases”, Lisa Suhair Majaj notes, “petitions for
naturalization were challenged and in some instances denied on the basis of whether or
not petitioners qualified as ‘white.’ These cases not only decided the fate of individual
immigrants, but also set precedents for the inclusion or exclusion of entire ethnic
groups” (2000: 321). In the cases involving Arabs, it was argued that Arabs should be
denied the right for citizenship based on their dark skin color, their origin in the Asian
continent, distance from European culture, and proximity to Islam. However, most cases
before 1920 were resolved in favor of the applicants, which led scholars like Alixa Naff
to consider prerequisite cases as an anomalous period in a relatively straightforward
Arab American history of assimilation.
When Arabic-speaking immigrants were faced with the threat of losing
citizenship rights, they battled for white racial status within the context of white
supremacy. In courts and in the media they tried hard to assert their “whiteness,”
emphasizing their Christian faith and their origin in the Holy Land. “The Syrian,” then,
19
was not “Asiatic” or “negro” but “a civilized white man who has excellent traditions
and a glorious historical background and should be treated as among the best elements
of the American nation” (42),2 as argued in a letter published in the Syrian immigrant
newspaper Al-Shaab in a telling response to the lynching of a Syrian man and his wife
after a car accident in Florida, in 1929.This racist statement reveals the Syrians’ fears of
being exposed and their whiteness contested. While trying to demonstrate that the
Syrian was “not a negro,” the article “appeared unconcerned that black persons were
regularly the victims of extralegal violence” (Gualtieri, 165). On the contrary, it reveals
the Arab-speaking immigrants’ efforts to distance themselves from a racialized Other
embodied in African Americans, and “anxieties about their own racial identification in a
context where to be non-white had serious consequences” (Majaj 2000: 325).
Like other immigrant groups, such as the Irish and Italians, in their quest for
acceptance in the American context, Syrians “grasped for the whiteness at the margins
of their experience” (Roediger, 190). They did not try to “challenge the premise that
whiteness was a legitimate prerequisite for social, economic, and political privilege”
(Gualtieri, 165). Even when they were the victims of racial violence and discrimination
in the period of Jim Crow, the community leaders tended to emphasize racist discourse
and to avoid challenging the prevailing views held by native whites. Their strategy was
to not risk losing the security of their whiteness and, therefore, to reinforce their
position on the white side of the color line. This ambiguous racial status of early Arab
immigrants was resolved by affirming their whiteness, which demonstrates that
whiteness is not a biological fact, but rather a historically constructed and contested
category (Ignatiev, 2). One of the legacies of Syrians was the Congress’s decision to
officially recognize Arab immigrants as “white” in 1917, and place them within the path
“Has the Syrian Become a Negro.” Al Shaab, New York, May 1929. Reprinted in Syrian World III, 12
(June 1929): 42.
2
20
of whiteness and American citizenship. This status was strengthened by the 1920
census, which identified Palestinians and Syrians, separately, under the category of
“Foreign-born white population” (Naff 1985: 117).
As Sarah Gualtieri notes, “a common pattern among Syrians was to reaffirm and
invest in their whiteness” (165). Just as in court cases, newspapers and social relations,
they did so in letters as well. Majaj argues that “the links between western, European,
Christian identity, ‘whiteness’ and American identity, and between non-European, nonChristian identity, non-whiteness and non-American identity persisted, shaping Arab
American experience and literature both directly and indirectly.”3 Hence, early Arab
American writers were conscious of their mission to serve as a bridge between East and
West. These émigré writers, who wrote in Arabic as well as in English, mostly belonged
to the Mahjar (Arabic for “place of immigration”) literary movement that incorporated
diasporic writers in North and South America during the early part of the twentieth
century. While the South American branch of this group was centered in Brazil, its
northern counterpart settled in New York and revolved around the vigorous personality
of Gibran Kahlil Gibran. The other major figures of the northern branch were Mikhail
Naimy, Ameen Rihani and Elia Abu Madi. Unlike the southern group, which was
conservative and hardly challenged the prevailing neo-classical tradition of Arab poetry,
New York writers showed no reverence for traditional Arab culture, and therefore, for
Arab literary norms (Jayyusi 1977: 70).Their US-based haven provided them with
ideals of liberty and progress, which helped free them from the conservative constraints
of their Arab homelands subjected to Ottoman oppression.
Under the influence of western Romanticism and American transcendentalism,
the New York school inaugurated a new age of Romantic literature in the Arab World
3
Majaj, Lisa Suhair. “Arab-American Literature: Origins and Developments.” American Studies journal.
Number 52. 2008. 29 June 2009.
<http://www.asjournal.org/archive/52/150.html>
21
(Badawi 1975: 203). Journalism played an important part in promoting this group of
writers, not only through introducing their poetry and prose to their fellow immigrants,
but also through attracting the literary elite of the Middle East. The ambitious literary
journal Al-Funun (The Arts), edited by Naseeb Arida from 1913 to 1918, and the
newspaper Al-Sayeh (The Traveler), established by Abdul Massih Hadad and running
from 1912 to 1957, served as a mouthpiece for their remarkably cohesive philosophy of
literature and life. The movement culminated with the formation of Al Rabita al
Qalamiyya, known as the New York Pen League, in 1920.
According to poet and novelist Mikhail Naimy, the group’s main theoretician,
the purpose of this revolutionary society was “to lift Arabic literature from the quagmire
of stagnation and imitation, and to infuse a new life into its veins so as to make of it an
active force in the building up of the Arab nations” (154).The group was committed to
confronting the restrictive rules and rigid regulations of early twentieth-century Arab
literature, which was limited to the imitation of classical Arab letters. The movement,
self-consciously dedicated to literary reform, believed in the necessity of updating
literature to the needs, interests and expectations of early twentieth-century readers, as
they were convinced that stagnation and imitation would lead to the death of literature
itself if no efforts were made to revive the spirit of Arab literature of the time. These
young writers, then, generated to a large extent the revival of literature in their Arab
homelands, and to the setting of the bases of modern Arab literature.
Al Mahjar writers’ great impact on Arab letters, together with their nationalistic
goals, did not prevent them from shaping their own literary, intellectual and political
project in the US. Heir of two cultural and literary traditions, they yearned to play the
role of cultural intermediary as they sought not only to create philosophical meeting
points between East and West, but also to fuse them together. The fact of writing in
22
Arabic and English signified a constant literary and cultural translation, a process that
sometimes tended to collide with Orientalist discourses.
Writers like Gibran and Rihani were aware that addressing an American
audience did not just imply the ability to write in English – a foreign language – but,
most importantly perhaps, the necessity of placing themselves in relation to a powerful
discourse that had already shaped their readers’ conception of oriental culture. Writing
in English meant that the emerging Anglophone Arab literature was restricted to the
already established discourse, and then constantly had to define itself in relation to it.
Nevertheless, when they wrote within an Arabic cultural discourse, they
not only had a different agenda, but also enjoyed greater discursive
latitude in that, first, they did not have to explain Arab culture to Arabic
readers; secondly, they were not expected by their readers to pose as
Oriental spokesmen; and thirdly, they did not have to abide by discursive
strictures imposed on their cultures by a conquering knowledge system –
with its stereotypes, typologies, culturalist and racialist frames of
reference, privileged texts and modes, and so forth – even when they
could not free themselves entirely from its powerful imprint. (Hassan
2007: 249)
Addressing an Arab audience allowed them to challenge essentialist and
simplistic dominant Orientalist discourses, and therefore, to reveal and even confront
their imperialistic motives and foundations. On the other hand, when they wrote in
English they had to convey their message in a way that would not affect their level of
acceptance as writers among American readers. As Shakir states,
The first generation of Arab American writers (as might be expected of
immigrants of an age of rampant xenophobia) dressed carefully for their
encounter with the American public, putting on the guise of prophet,
preacher, or man of letters. They could not hide their foreignness, but
they could make it respectable (1996: 6).
In their struggle to demonstrate themselves worthy in the American context,
early Arab American writers focused on the fact of being Orientals and at the same
23
time, able to produce literature and be compared with the most illustrious Western
writers. In their attempts to bridge worlds and redefine the relationship between East
and West, they tried to carefully challenge the stereotypes part of the Orientalist system
of the time. Edward Said argues that the Orientalist plays the role of a translator.
The relationship between Orientalist and Orient was essentially
hermeneutical: standing before a distant, barely intelligible civilization or
cultural monument, the Orientalist scholar reduced the obscurity by
translating, sympathetically portraying, inwardly grasping the hard-toreach object. Yet the Orientalist remained outside the Orient, which
however much was made to appear intelligible, remained beyond the
occident (1978: 222).
In this context, early Arab American writers claimed the role of Orientalist
translator out of their belief that they were more prepared and more appropriate to
interpret the Orient than European Orientalists. In spite of being immersed in the
systematic Orientalist discourse, they felt a kind of tension between their own
experiences and that knowledge. Hassan notes that their “attempts to replace the
Orientalists as interpreters or translators of the Orient were a way of claiming cultural
space and voice, countering the negativity associated with the Orient, and mediating
between it and the West for the sake of greater cross-cultural understanding” (250).
These writers accepted the Orientalist essentialist differentiation between East
and West as two contrasting entities. However, they did not believe at all in the West’s
superiority over the East, as they tried to redefine the relationship between the two poles
by challenging any kind of hierarchical classification of their values. They provided an
alternative to the dominant Orientalist discourse, consisting of a duality between two
equal partners complementing each other and seeking a metaphysical equilibrium. As
Hassan notes, many of these writers, like Rihani for instance, “envisioned a Hegelian
dynamic that would eventually blend East and West into a higher civilizational
synthesis, and saw themselves in the role of two-way reformers and facilitators of that
24
process” (252). Hassan goes on to explain that this vision admitted, on the one hand, the
Orientalist distinction between East and West, and on the other, it “rejected its historical
immutability in favor of a conception of East and West as values and attitudes of mind
that are not geographically determined and which can, therefore, circulate among
cultures over long historical periods” (252). This method would allow them to transmit,
as a matter of fact, an important feeling of pride in their homelands’ cultural and
civilizational heritage, something they could contribute to their new country.
It is true that early Arab American writers were very concerned with, and critical
of, the worsening situation back home, as they constantly expressed, for instance, their
nationalistic apirations and their support of Arab unity and independence from the
Ottomans, and later from European colonialism. Moreover, they advocated the reform
of social conditions in the Arab homelands, and strongly condemned religious
superstition and the power of the clergy. In fact, both Rihany and Gibran, with a
Maronite Catholic background, were excommunicated in 1903 and 1908 respectively.
Nevertheless, they expressed their pride in their Arab cultural legacy as well. In his
message entitled “To Young Americans of Syrian Origins,” written especially for the
first issue of the Arab American magazine The Syrian World published in 1926, Gibran
addressed his Arab American compatriots:
I believe in you, and I believe in your destiny.
I believe that you are contributors to this new civilization.
I believe that you have inherited from your forefathers an ancient dream,
a song, a prophecy, which you can proudly lay as a gift of gratitude upon
the lap of America.
I believe you can say to the founders of this great nation, “Here I am, a
youth, a young tree, whose roots were plucked from the hills of Lebanon,
yet I am deeply rooted here, and I would be fruitful.”
… And I believe that you can say to Abraham Lincoln, the blessed,
“Jesus of Nazareth touched your lips when you spoke, and guided your
hand when you wrote; and I shall uphold all that you have written.”
I believe that you can say to Emerson and Whitman and James, “In my
veins runs the blood of the poets and wise men of old, and it is my desire
to come to you and receive, but I shall not come with empty hands.”
25
… It is to stand before the towers of New York, Washington, Chicago
and San Francisco saying in your heart, “I am the descendent of a people
that built Damascus, and Byblus, Tyre and Sidon, and Antioch, and now
I am here to build with you, and with a will.” (4-5)
This address captures the spirit of the period as it was oriented towards the first
generation of Syrian Americans whose first language was English. While Gibran
advocated the Americanness of Syrian Americans, and therefore their duty to serve that
country, he reminded them of the glorious history of their ancestors’ homelands and the
obligation to be proud of their roots and ancient civilizations. The tree imagery used by
Gibran introduces to the mind of the reader concepts like fertility, strength and hard
work of a settled community as proud of its origins as of its adopted home. According
to Gibran, Arab Americans then are supposed to go on with the work started by the
Founding Fathers of the American nation and contribute to the building of their country.
He tried to convey the idea that while their ancestors had built the ancient cities that
gloriously marked the civilizations of the Old World, Arab Americans had to take part
in the building of the civilization of the New World. Gibran here emphasized that Arab
Americans had much to offer to the American nation as a whole, and therefore he
validated the East as a source of inspiration from which the Western world could learn a
lot. Basing his address upon the concept of equality and reciprocity between East and
West, Gibran made reference to some of the most distinguished American writers in
order to suggest the literary potential of Arab American intellectuals, and their being
heir of an important literary tradition, and to predict the contribution they could make to
the US literary canon. He articulated his belief in the qualities and abilities of the Syrian
American and constantly reminded him of his Arab background and heritage.
Gibran’s address embodies what Hassan considers a “reconstructed Orientalism”
which provided an alternative to the dominant discourse and which was obviously
26
articulated in the works of early Arab American writers, particularly in Rihani’s
writings. In his address entitled “When East and West Meet,” which appeared in the
same magazine in June 1927, and which was delivered two months earlier at the
American University of Beirut, Rihani provides a direct answer to Rudyard Kipling’s
proposition explicitly articulated in his poem entitled “The Ballad of East and West”
(1889), where he says:
“Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet
Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God’s Great Judgment Seat.”4
Rihani considers that the title of his address “implies a partial denial of the dictum of
Rudyard Kipling, megaphoned to the world” through the cited verse. He says:
I admit at the start, that from the surface point of view, the evidence is in
favor of Mr. Kipling. The East prays, the West dances; the East dreams,
the West thinks; the East broods, the West plays... The Oriental is
imaginative and metaphoric, the Occidental is literal and “matter-offact.” Kipling’s dictum is in this, at least, wholly to the point. (8)
Rihani here seems to accept the Orientalist distinction between East and West, as he
utilizes the prevailing discourse’s essentialized concepts. He does not challenge what
this discourse considers as the opposing essences of two different poles. Indeed, he
confirms the supposed antithetical nature of these two autonomous entities. However,
he considers that the traits of both sides need to be nuanced, and historicized:
Like all generalities, however, these traits are not without exception.
They are characteristic, but not exclusive. Take, for instance, the fawning
and florid Oriental, extravagant with the metaphor and the puff, he is not
a type exclusive. He is a species produced by despotism and its pompous
court. The aristocracy kowtows the Emperor; the lower classes kowtow
to the aristocracy and to each other...
When absolute monarchies were the rule in Europe, the Europeans, on
the whole, were quite Oriental in the art of fawning and adulation; while
the extravagant manner, as much in evidence in the nation as around the
throne, was revealed, not only in speech, but also in the dress of the
period. Consider the ruffles and feathers of my lords at court; the
4
Kipling, Rudyard. “The Ballad of East and West,” MacMillan’s Magazine. December 1889.
27
flounces and trains of my lady in waiting; consider the dedications
penned by needy scribes to their rich patrons... As for the people, they
follow, according to the Arabic proverb, their sovereign. (8 – 9)
Rihani’s words are highly significant as he denies the exclusivity and timelessness of
the East and West’s traits, which he links to historical circumstances. According to him,
these features are not predetermined and everlasting, hence the Oriental could be the
Occidental and vice versa, which makes their identities interchangeable and variable.
Rihani goes on focusing on the importance of
the highest ideal of the prophets and the poets – the ideal of the soul –
which includes the ethical and the practical aspects of life, and which is
neither Oriental nor exclusively Occidental. It is supremely human.
Before it every mark of birth disappears; and customs and traditions are
held in abeyance, and the differences in nationality and language cease to
be a hindrance to understanding. The soul seeking expression, the soul
reaching out for the truth, is one everywhere. Confucius might be
American in his ideal, even as he is Chinese, and Emerson might be
Chinese, even if he is American. Cotama [sic] Buddha made manifest in
London might be mistaken for Carlyle and Carlyle revisiting the
glimpses of the moon in Japan might be mistaken for Cotama. Jelal-udDin Rumi, were he born in Assisi would have been a St. Francis; and St.
Francis were he born un Shiraz would have been a Jelal-ud- Din. ... And
genius everywhere is one. In the Orient and in the Occident the deep
thinkers are kin, the poets are cousins, the pioneers of the spirit are the
messengers of peace and goodwill to the world. Their works are the open
highways between nations, and they themselves are the ever living
guardians and guides. (9-10)
The kind of wisdom that Rihani is advocating here sets the mind free from national
confines and egoistic interests, and gives it the advantage and privilege to perceive the
other as a reflection of the self. Rihani’s agent of proper perception is a soul seeking the
truth; and accordingly, the souls seeking truth everywhere, in the East and the West,
must meet on common ground.
This transcendentalist approach adopted by Rihani undermines the traditional
Orientalist binary structure and offers a conciliatory alternative discourse that highlights
his cultural translation project. Given that, it is not surprising that his translation of the
28
poetry of the classical Arab poet Abu’l-Ala al-Ma’arri (974-1058) entitled The
Quatrains of Abu’l-Ala (1903) was his first English-language publication. The volume
which included a selection of Al Ma’arri’s poems was followed by another one entitled
The Luzumiyat of Abu’l-Ala (1918). The choice of Rihani to inaugurate his Englishlanguage works with a literary translation of Al Ma’arri in particular rather than any
other representatives of the Arabic literary tradition is highly noteworthy, as it was
meant to further deconstruct and even challenge Orientalist scholarship. Al Ma’arri was
a skeptical rationalist considered to be one of the most rational and intellectual of Arab
poets. In his preface to The Luzumiyat, Rihani describes Al Ma’arri as “the Lucretius of
Islam, the Voltaire of the East” (1918: 7), whose case challenges the idea of an
exclusively spiritual East. A glimpse of Al Ma’arri’s rationalism and skepticism
towards all religions can be observed in the following extract from The Quatrains:
Another prophet will, they say, soon arise;
But will he profit by his tricks, likewise?
My prophet is my reason, aye, myself
From me to me there is no room for lies. (Rihani 1903: 57)
Al Ma’arri believed in the existence of a non-partisan God whose majesty and
magnificence he recognized, but these convictions held an anti-clerical and antisectarian sense of religion, as he definitely denied established religions and prophets.
He believed that God created man and provided him with a mind and common sense to
think, but on the other hand, He did not send messengers and prophets to guide him, nor
did He reveal holy books to show him the right path and lead him to happiness.
Muhammad or Messiah! Hear thou me,
The truth entire nor here nor there can be;
How can our God who made the sun and moon
Give all his light to one Sect, I can not see. (Rihani 1918: 35)
29
Al Ma’arri believed that God embraces all humanity regardless of creeds as he
considered that religions were created by intelligent men for the sake of fulfilling their
own interests.
Rihani was impressed by Al Ma’arri, who he describes as “a poet and a scholar
of first rank, [and] also one of the foremost thinkers of his age” (Rihani 1918: 14), and
who he considers an example of the limitation of the Orientalist discourse. Rihani is
obviously trying to further deconstruct the essentialist image of a purely spiritual Orient
through the introduction of the works of Al Ma’arri who appeared at a time “when
Christendom was groping amid the superstitions of the Dark Ages” (Rihani 1918: 7). In
other words, Rihani tries to demonstrate that the spirit of Enlightenment could have
appeared in the East centuries before it did in Europe. More importantly, perhaps,
Rihani believed that Al Ma’arri combined the best qualities of the rationalist West and
the spiritual East, as his philosophy decreases the gap between the two poles. In this
context, Hassan states that Al Ma’arri embodies the influence of Eastern knowledge on
the West, “something that Rihani finds extremely significant because it reinforces the
idea of Europe’s indebtedness to the wisdom of the East in general, and to Arab
civilization in particular, thereby undermining the supposed superiority of the West”
(Hassan, 256). Rihani’s constant deconstruction of the binary Orientalist scholarship,
therefore, reveals the revisionary discourse that defines his own project of civilizational
synthesis embodied by Al Ma’arri’s philosophy and thought.
Rihani continued with his cultural translation project through writing in all three
major Western literary genres. Not only was he the first Arab to write a novel in
English, he was also the first Arab to write English verse. He published two poetry
collections, Myrtle and Myrrh (1905) and A Chant of Mystics and Other Poems (1921).
In 1915, he wrote a play entitled Wajdah which was not published before 2001.
30
Rihani’s novel in English, The Book of Khalid, published in 1911, was an inaugural
work of Arab American writing, being the first book ever authored in English by an
Arab. The book, illustrated by Kahlil Gibran, was the forerunner of the latter’s most
famous work, The Prophet. It is a philosophical and largely autobiographical work
which represents a passionate plea for the reconciliation of the material and the spiritual,
of East and West, of Christianity and Islam. The novel embodies the culmination of
Rihani’s concern with bridging East and West. Yet this book achieved little success,
partly due to what Hassan describes as
its baffling admixture of philosophy and mysticism, its paradoxical tone
at once solemn and ironical, its confusingly overwrought web of literary
allusion, its alternation between utopianism and cynicism, and its
enigmatic protagonist who seems at once to embody and satirize Rihani’s
own ideas (259).
The book is about a circular path that takes its protagonist from Lebanon on a westward
journey to America and finally back to the Middle East, which makes it a story of
returning home as well. Rihani compares the journey to the Stations of the Cross: “The
voyage to America is the Via Dolorosa of the emigrant; and the Port of Beirut, the
verminous hostelries of Marseilles, the Island of Ellis in New York, are the three
stations thereof” (29). In fact, the three sections of the book correspond to the three
levels of the spiritual quest for awareness, hence the dedication “to my Brother Man,
my Mother Nature and my Maker God” (Rihani 1911: v).
The novel is part of the synthesis of civilizations project advocated by Rihani as
it embodies the writer’s quest for a literary synthesis of East and West. The language of
the book is a deliberately hybridized discourse consisting of constant cross-linguistic
word play, untranslated Arabic vocabulary, and literal translations of Arabic phrases.
According to Geoffrey Nash, Rihani’s language in many of his English language
writings
31
is framed in a discourse clearly borrowed from the Western Romantics,
and at others in an idiom that reads like a literal translation from Arabic.
What can be said of most of these writings is that in foregrounding the
Arab and oriental constituency, they make little accommodation for a
western readership in the sense of diluting and acculturating oriental
idioms to suit occidental predispositions and expectations. (18)
This estrangement of the English language, therefore, makes it difficult for its native
readers to decode this hybridized discourse, as probably only bi-cultural individuals,
like Rihani himself, would be the ideal audience for this kind of writing. However, the
book’s pattern follows European models, like for example Voltaire’s Candide (1759).
The novel’s protagonist Khalid is a naïve, idealistic and irreverent young Arab man
from Ba’albek who is not content with conventions and institutions in Lebanon. In this
sense, Evelyne Shakir states that,
Just like Candide, caught kissing the baron’s daughter (rumored to be his
cousin), is set upon by the baron and literally kicked out of the
“terrestrial paradise” of Westphalia, so – in a cockeyed echo of that scene
– Khalid, in love with his cousin, is beaten from the door by her father,
whereupon he sets out a journey not away from, but in search of, “the
Paradise of the World” (1996: 6).
America is the Paradise that Khalid and his close friend Shakib leave Lebanon to reach.
Once in New York, “the wonder-working, wealth-worshipping city” (Rihani 1911: 33),
Khalid goes through the experience of an intellectual awakening which finally takes him
back home.
During his New York experience, Khalid works in peddling, frequents atheist
circles, then experiments cult groups and free love, and is finally introduced to
Tammany Hall and American politics, which leads him to end up in prison. Disillusion
and disenchantment mark Khalid’s experience in America as he is shocked and appalled
by the crudeness and cruel materialism he sees around him. He reaches the conclusion
that Americans “are all true and honest votaries of Mammon, their Great God, their one
32
and only God. And is it not natural that the Demiurgic Dollar should be the national
Deity of America? Have not deities been always conceived after man’s needs and
aspirations?” (112). Nonetheless, he looks ahead to an America which might yet fulfill
its promise as he states that,
My faith in man … is as strong as my faith in God. And as strong, too,
perhaps, is my faith in the future world-ruling destiny of America. In this
New World, the higher Superman shall rise… but he shall not be an
American in the Democratic sense. He shall be nor of the Old World nor
of the New; he shall be my Brother, of both. In him shall be incarnated
the Asiatic spirit of Poesy and Prophecy, and the European spirit of Art,
and the American spirit of Invention. (113-14)
Hence, although his critique of his adopted country is undoubtedly devastating, Khalid
nevertheless sees great possibilities in America.
Exhausted by his spiritual and intellectual struggles, together with his experience
in America, Khalid returns back to Lebanon where he finds no less corruption than he
has witnessed in the New World. Changed by his years in America, he no longer fits
into the old society. After a series of problems with the Maronite church which leads to
his excommunication, he retreats to the woods sick in body and soul. Once there, Khalid
lives off the land after a hermit’s invitation: “Come, let us till and cultivate the vineyard
together” (226), which alludes to Candide and his resolution: “Let us cultivate our
garden.” Khalid spends a year there, similar to “Thoreau’s passage through Walden
Wood” (194), where he undergoes a spiritual transformation through his contact with
nature. After that, he emerges from the woods as a new man who returns to society and
goes forth to help his countrymen. After his spiritual rebirth, he decides to engage in
politics until he disappears in Egypt later. He moves from spiritual and mystical
concerns to a political commitment to a Pan-Arab nationalism, which reflects Rihani’s
own experience.
33
The message that Khalid preaches when he emerges from the woods conveys the
core of Rihani’s philosophy:
I am equally devoted both to the material and the spiritual… For the
dervish who whirls himself into a foaming ecstasy of devotion and the
strenuous American who works himself up to a sweating ecstasy of gain,
are the two poles of the same absurdity, the two ends of one evil (23738).
Thus, Khalid shows a mixture of the mystical and the practical, evoking some of the
prominent features of transcendentalism such as idealism and social activism. Rihani’s
reference to Thoreau, Whitman and Emerson, among others, demonstrates the
significant influence of transcendentalism on him. His social activism found its
expression in Pan-Arabism, just as Thoreau’s social activism found its expression in
abolitionism.
As Shakir states, The Book of Khalid (1911) “is a sampler of voices and genres
borrowed from a crowd of European and American authors. Next to Voltaire, Carlyle is
the most obvious model, and among Americans, Emerson and Whitman. Each of these
men is referred to in the book, as are many others with whom Rihani enters into brief or
extended dialogue” (1996: 6). The reference to all these writers was apparently intended
to establish Rihani’s credentials, as it implicitly includes “the claim that here is an
‘Oriental’ who can run with Western writers, who can match their erudition, their tone,
their wordplay…” Rihani’s objective seems to be to claim “respect for himself, and by
implication, for his people” (Shakir 1996: 6). Therefore, The Book of Khalid (1911) was
a fundamental piece in Rihani’s project which, despite the anomalies and defects it may
have, remains a brave effort, taking into account the historical circumstances of the
time, together with the discursive conditions whether in the Arab world or in America
and Europe during that period. His valiant challenging of the Orientalist discourse and
his efforts at cultural translation constructed for a cross-cultural interaction. However,
34
his works remain unknown and generally ignored, which seems to be the fate of the
Easterners who questioned the Orientalist modes of representation. The works of these
kinds of writers were regarded as “cultural oddit[ies]” (Nash, 25), while others like
Gibran, for instance, who conformed to those models were able to achieve worldwide
success. Gibran, in fact, presented a domesticated “Orient” that hardly challenged
America’s modes of perception or self-image.
This anxiety of Arab American literature of the time to prove itself worthy in the
US context was even more apparent in some of the autobiographies of the period. Lisa
Suhair Majaj writes that
immigrant autobiographies before the 1950’s were oriented toward the
American context: indeed, their texts which draw on the conventions of
American immigrant autobiography, provided a vehicle through which
authors could write themselves into existence as Americans. In their
autobiographies, Arab identity is mediated through strategies of
containment and situated within a broad claim to American identity.
(1999: 68).
Following the already-established genre of immigrant autobiography, the Lebaneseborn Protestant minister Abraham Mitrie Rihbany (1869-1944) published his own
autobiography, entitled A Far Journey (1914), where he narrates his journey into
Americanization. While Rihbany, who reached New York in 1892 at the age of 22, tries
to depict the traditional quest of the immigrant, he places a special emphasis on his
origin in the “Holy Land” as well as on his Christian identity, in “an attempt to engage
American readers and familiarize the ‘exotic’, while at the same time seeking to
distance [himself] from Islam” (Majaj 2000: 328). Rihbany tries to make a biblical
framing of the East as he “draws heavily on biblical themes, structuring his text along
the pattern of scriptural discourse” (328). The dominance of “Christian imagery” aims
to validate Syria, being part of the Holy Land, as the origin of Christian spirituality. In
this context, in the opening chapter of the book, he makes connections between his own
35
birth and Christ’s. He describes friends visiting the house of his family and how they
sang and were exceedingly glad, because “unto them a child was born, a son was
given.” Entering the room where “the day old babe and its mother lay,” they “brought
their presents with them as did the ‘Wise Men’ of old on their historic visit to
Bethlehem” (Rihbany 1914: 4). After forty days, his mother took him to the church,
where the priest “took [him] in his arms, as the aged Simeon took the infant Jesus” (5).
The book’s endless biblical metaphors and parallels reflect Rihbany’s efforts “to
make the point that Syrian immigrants were not simply the recipients of American
largesse, but had something of great value to their new country: an ancient spiritual
heritage” (Majaj 2000: 328). Accordingly, this use of Christian identity makes allusion
to the Arab American community’s struggle to gain acceptance and be included as
white Americans. This effort is further echoed in the deliberate engagement in the
strategic distancing from Islam, and which can be observed in Rihbany’s support of
stereotypes against Muslims. He mentions the instructions he received before his
journey to Beirut: “I was not to gaze curiously at the Mohammedans, whom I knew by
their white turbans. They considered us Kuffar (infidels) and enemies of the faith;
therefore they were ever ready for the slightest provocation to beat or even kill us”
(Rihbany 1914: 81). According to Majaj, this example illustrates how Rihbany tries to
make obvious “the difference between Muslims and Christians”, and at the same time
he “played upon stereotypes of Muslims (here called by the inaccurate American term
‘Mohammedan’) as violent” (2000: 328). This rejection of his Muslim counterparts tries
to further situate Christian Syrian immigrants in the American context, as his strategy
implies highlighting the affinity of Syrians with Christianity and consequently with the
West. In a later book entitled The Syrian Christ (1916), he writes that “whatever else
Jesus was, as regards his modes of thought and life and his method of teaching, he was a
36
Syrian of the Syrians. According to authentic history Jesus never saw any other country
than Palestine” (4).
Like other early Arab American writers, Rihbany accepts the Orientalist
distinction between East and West. In his self-assigned task of mediator between the
Christian East and the West, he adopts an essentialist approach while tackling these two
parts. In this light, East and West, represented in Rihbany’s narrative by Syria and
America, are configured as fixed entities, with mutually exclusive characteristics. As
Said sustains in Orientalism (1978), for the native in general, and for the native
intellectual formed in the West in particular, there exists the possibility of internalizing
the stereotypical and rigid categorizations mediating the construction of Orientalist
discourse (322-25). This form of integration might be manifested in the use of the
language of authenticity, by “the native informant,” the representation of the past, or the
reinforcement of dichotomies between East and West (324). Rihbany’s portrayal of his
native country Syria is based on a homogenization process achieved, as I have already
mentioned, through its association with myths, mysticism and spirituality. Moreover,
Syria is configured as the mother from whom he can claim descent, “Syria, my loving
untutored mother”, while America is considered as “my virile, resourceful teacher”
(Rihbany 1914: ix). In his efforts to establish a safe distance between his Syrian past
and American present, Rihbany resorts to the gendering of Syria and America, as he
inscribes his Syrian past in a maternal context where Syria is depicted as “untutored”
and steeped in the feminine, while America emerges as the “virile” educator, a symbol
of Rihbany’s access to the masculine realm, where reason, education, and structure are
celebrated. Not only is the East associated with the child-self of the narrator whose
mother, Syria, suffers from lack of education and the impossibility of accessing the
higher levels of civilization, but it is also made to speak for the carnal. As Said argues,
37
“the association between the Orient and sex is remarkably persistent. The Middle East is
resistant, as any virgin would be, but the male scholar wins the prize by bursting open,
penetrating through the Gordian knot…” (1978: 309). Sexual imagery relegates the East
to the realm of the flesh, which, according to Western dichotomies, is configured in
opposition to reason and intellectual sophistication.
Nevertheless, the critic Evelyn Shakir gives little importance to the Orientalist
content of Rihbany’s autobiography. She highlights the book’s “strong sense of
audience and its eagerness to instruct” as it “continued Rihbany’s early career as a
lecturer on the Orient.” She notes that while Syrian peddlers used to sell holy objects,
like rosaries and olive-wood crosses, from Jerusalem and the Holy Land, Rihbany’s
work was not different from theirs as he “resorted to a religious discourse”. She argues
that
While crammed with biblical allusion, his was calmer, more Protestant
discourse, neither prophetic nor hortatory. It was instead the
unthreatening and familiar voice of the good-humored teacher/minister
explicating a text on a Sunday morning (which is exactly who Rihbany
was and what he did). In interpreting East to West, Rihbany relied on a
religious mythology more deeply rooted in the western psyche than was a
titillating Orientalism. The Bible was the best answer to the Arabian
Nights. (Shakir 1988: 43)
Shakir maintains that the goal of Rihbany is to reinterpret the East to the West and to
preach to an audience with pre-established concepts about Arabs, “draw[ing]
connections between Bible stories and the life of his people” (43), which consequently
allows him to claim Americanness in favor of Syrian immigrants. Accordingly, Rihbany
and early Arab American writers participated in the community’s efforts to prove
themselves worthy in the American context, and therefore claim respect for themselves
and for their people without trying to hide their Arab origins (Shakir 1996: 6). This was
38
not the case with the next generation of Arab Americans taking into account the general
atmosphere in the United States.
1.2 Second Generation of Arab American Writers
After a phase of considerable literary presence by Arab immigrants in the US,
the next decades witnessed the suspension of the Arab American literary project, which
entered a period of stillness. The few writings published then reflected the assimilation
process which the community rapidly went through during the assimilationist decades
of American ideology, mainly after World War I and especially with the 1924 JohnsonReed Quota Act that drastically limited the number of immigrants arriving at U. S.
shores until 1965. Thus, very few Arabic-speaking immigrants made their way across
the Atlantic during the interwar period marked by the Great Depression and antiimmigrant sentiment. Consequently, communication with the homeland was ruptured,
reinforcing the sense of isolation among the community which had to fall back on its
own resources. By World War II, the Arab American community was virtually
indistinguishable from the larger American society. The absence of ongoing contact
with the homeland made Syrian Americans turn their attention towards domestic news.
The number of Arabic language newspapers declined dramatically, which indicates the
little interest in, as well as the ignorance of, the Arabic language among the second
generation of Syrian Americans. Naff states that “[a]ttempts to teach Arabic to children
at home and in private schools competed unsuccessfully with the Americanization
process” (1983: 19). As a result, by the time the second generation of Arab Americans
came of age, they did not speak Arabic and had only a superficial understanding and a
diminished awareness of their Arab heritage. They were thoroughly immersed in
39
American society and culture. As Evelyn Shakir argues, “[the Syrians’] American born
children – those who came of age in the 1930’s, 1940’s, and 1950’s – costumed
themselves as ‘regular Americans’ and hoped to pass, which may be why they produced
so little literature” (1996: 6).
Majaj notes that during this period, “although there was not a complete dearth of
literary production,” the second generation of “Arab American writers wrote about their
Arab background with hesitation and through self-distancing narrative strategies.”5 The
major Arab American writers of the time, Vance Bourjaily (1922-2010) and William
Peter Blatty (1928- ), whose works embody the culmination of the assimilative process,
showed a deep-seated ambivalence toward Arab ethnicity. Tanyss Ludescher states that
these writers “perceived themselves as mainstream writers and did not identify as Arab
Americans” (101), which reveals the pressure on authors to ignore and distance
themselves from their Arab identity.
Vance Bourjaily was the son of a Lebanese father and an American mother,
whose literary career emerged out of World War II. His autobiographical novel
Confessions of a Spent Youth (1960), including his war experience in the Middle East,
dedicates only one chapter, “The Fractional Man,” to ethnicity, where he briefly
explores the issue of ethnic identity. Quince, the novel’s protagonist, has Bourjaily’s
mixed heritage. He explains that his parental heritage “was not particularly a secret,
rather something which my father dismissed.” This father, “busy being an American,”
has brought up his son “not so much to conceal as to ignore” (Bourjaily 1960: 238) his
Lebanese background. He has learnt almost nothing about his ancestors’ homeland from
his father, but rather from the outside. As a result, this lack of knowledge leads Quince
to carry an American attitude to the Arab world, as all his perceptions are dictated by
4
Majaj, Lisa Suhair. “Arab-American Literature: Origins and Developments.” American Studies journal.
Number 52. 2008. 29 June 2009. <http://www.asjournal.org/archive/52/150.html>
40
the West. In fact, the novel does not focus on the traditional ethnic writer’s
buildungsroman structure that implies the protagonist’s reconciliation with their
ethnicity, since from the beginning of the novel, the protagonist has revealed his choice
of not belonging to, nor identifying with any group or community:
In the fluid society through which I move there is no... community of
moral belief; it cannot hold itself nor me its child, to any comprehensive
and unquestioned single code. And though there are many groups within
this society which guard separate if often overlapping codes, I am in no
very unusual position when I say I belong to none of them - I am more or
less without class or national origin or locality or regular intellectual
persuasion, as is true of many men of my time (22).
Quince tries to free himself from any responsibility to his ethnic belonging. It is
only during World War II that he winds up at his father’s birthplace in Lebanon when
he serves in the Middle East. This lack of identification with his Arab background
carries what Evelyn Shakir describes as “an anti-Arab bias” (1993: 67) as Bourjaily
mentions that his views on Palestine were “vaguely Zionist” (1960: 247). Quincy even
says that “[w]e seemed to be on the wrong side of the Crusades” (239). During his
World War II service in the Middle East, Shakir comments, he “views it through the
lens of European literature” (1993:67). Indeed, in Aden, he sees a group of men holding
whips supervising naked laborers. “I think of Rimbaud and of the legend that it was in
such an antique port, to become such an overseer that he disappeared… I feel his whip
in my hand” (Bourjaily 1960: 239). Afterward, in Suez, Quince pretends to be an Arab,
and convinces the natives: “The prank allies him with Europeans like Richard Burton
and E. W. Lane, who also donned Arab gear, and speaks again to his lack of
identification with Arab people” (Shakir 1993: 67).
Nevertheless, after this “role-playing” at being Arab, he returns to Kabb Elias,
his father’s ancestral village in Lebanon, for a short trip, where he discovers that his
roots go deeper into his Lebanese heritage than he has believed. Welcomed with open
41
arms by his great-aunt Naife and her extended family, he experiences a feeling of
kinship and belonging that has eluded him in American society. Yet, this feeling of
belonging is only temporary and cannot provide permanent relief for the modern
American condition. He expresses his admiration for the peasant culture that his father
and grandmother left behind, and even thinks that he might have been as “simple and
steadfast and proud” as his Lebanese cousins, instead of a modern American, “uselessly
complicated and discontent” (Bourjaily 1960: 272). Quince’s case mirrors the
invisibility of Arab immigrants’ American-born children who scarcely acknowledge
their heritage. Therefore, this obviously reflects the invisibility of the community as a
whole during this period.
While indifference might describe Bourjaily’s attitude towards his Arab
American background, William Peter Blatty, best known as the writer of The Exorcist
(1971), was actually immersed and overwhelmed by his ethnic identity. His comic
autobiographical novel entitled Which way to Mecca, Jack? (1960) describes the life of
the narrator and protagonist William Blatty who grows up in the United States as the
child of immigrant Lebanese parents. If Bourjaily denies his ethnic tradition, Blatty just
resents it, as the novel displays the author’s embarrassment with his Lebanese heritage,
which he constantly tries hard to escape. He begins the first chapter by confusing racial
categories of descent and then declaring them irrelevant: “My mother is an Arab, which
would make me half Arab, except that my father was an Arab too. But already I digress”
(1960: 13). His Arab mother figure, as Shakir points out, is “the embodiment of his
ethnic heritage”. She continues: “Out of embarrassment, pain, or the desire of a quick
buck, he has let outsiders (or the outsider in himself) dictate his mother’s portrait, has in
fact claimed to see her as would an amused, detached, but not unkindly Western
spectator (1991: 11). Blatty personifies his Arab background in the burlesque portrait of
42
his mean and domineering mother who never misses an opportunity to humiliate him. In
this context, in front of the girls William tries to impress, she makes such comments as,
“My God, my Will-yam he never dirty his diaper!” (11).
Blatty’s suffering from his ethnic identity starts during his childhood when the
other kids always remind him of his foreignness through their cruel jokes, as when they
mock him saying, “So wotta you, a camel?” (14). The little William, therefore, longs to
get rid of the burden of his background, which makes him wish to be taken for a
member of a minority higher on the race hierarchical system. “How I envied the Irish
boys their snub noses, their pale skins,” he says. “But… I was usually content to look
forward to the now-and-then occasions when someone would call me ‘dago’ or ‘wop’,
for at least the Italians were a majority minority” (29). William’s struggle to fit in as a
white reflects Blatty’s complex of being Arab as well as his own wish to assimilate into
mainstream white America. Here the Arab American desire for whiteness is explored in
William’s secret wish to be a pale-faced Irish boy, as well as in his mother’s breaking
up of the friendship young William forges with the African American girl Frankie (21).
Nevertheless, when he later tries to get an opportunity in Hollywood as an actor, he is
rejected as being too “Biblical.” Not only does he fail to pass as a white person for an
all-American hero role, but he is also rejected for the part of an Arab character. Indeed,
when he tries to get a role in the movie The Ten Commandments, he is turned down on
the grounds that he is not authentic enough because of his blue eyes. Thus, according to
American standards, he neither fits in as a white nor does he meet Orientalist
expectations of Arabness. As Majaj explains, Blatty’s “autobiography makes clear that
challenging American racial hierarchies is as difficult as challenging Orientalist
stereotypes” (2000: 329).
43
To prove his Americanness, Blatty enlists in the US Information Agency (USIS),
a government agency dedicated to the promotion of American policies and culture
outside the United States. He spends two years on a tour of duty in Lebanon where he
learns to appreciate his Lebanese background, but he remains angry with Hollywood.
As soon as he comes back to the US, he decides to avenge himself. “I’ve got to make
them accept me” (Blatty 1960: 189), he says. In fact, he returns to Hollywood disguised
as an Arabian prince, and exploits the worst Orientalist stereotypes to impress and
ultimately mock the naive Hollywood bigwigs, as “Hollywood swallows it all” (Shakir
1993: 68). He easily manages to get access to the insider parties, film studios and
nightclubs which were barred to William Blatty, the blue-eyed Arab American with a
talent for acting. Blatty achieves his objective through caricaturing Arabs in order to
prove himself “authentic.” Nevertheless, as Shakir observes, “Hollywood has embraced
not William Blatty, Arab American, but Prince Khairallah Al Aswad el Xeer, a
personification of its own romantic (and essentially Orientalist) fantasies about the East.
To win the favor of an industry that trades in images, he has had to turn himself into a
cartoon Arab” (68). In addition to that, the very stereotypes which Blatty exposes “seem
to be virtually the only way he himself can speak of Arabs” (Shakir 1991: 10). In this
sense, Blatty recurs to slap-stick humor as a defense against the pain of being excluded
from US mainstream society and, on the other hand, undermines the notion of Arab
Americans as an “alien” race. He creates a self-denigrating comic narrative where he
satirizes his memories and everything related to his ethnic heritage in order to seek
acceptance. In this context, Tanyss Ludescher observes that “Which Way to Mecca,
Jack? is a farce, a self mocking parody of ethnic life, which uses humor to dispel the
angst of being different and foreign. By making himself ridiculous, Blatty can appear
less frightening and alien to his all-American audience” (2006: 102).
44
This hesitancy to engage with Arab American identity which marked the
writings of the second generation of American writers with an Arab background
gradually gave way to a new ethnic consciousness that led later generations of this
community to embrace Arab American ethnicity. As Michael Suleiman points out, by
World War II, there was no trace of a distinguishable Arab American community as
they were completely assimilated into mainstream American society. However, “it took
a second wave of immigration and other developments to rekindle interest in their Arab
heritage and to revive them as an ethnic community” (1999: 9). In this context, Alixa
Naff writes that “if political and economic events had not reactivated Arab immigration
and an interest in Arab culture, [Arab] Americans might have Americanized themselves
out of existence” (1983: 23).
1.3 The Emergence of an Arab American Consciousness
The second and third waves of Arab immigration to the US, respectively from
1945 to 1967 and from 1967 to the present, brought new components that would help
change the community’s attitude to become more self-conscious and active. The postWorld War II Arab immigration was much more diverse and significantly differed from
early immigrant pioneers. While the first wave of Arab immigrants consisted mainly of
Christians who came exclusively from the region of Greater Syria, the second and third
waves were largely comprised of Muslims from all parts of the Arab world, including
North Africa. The new arrivals’ reasons for immigration were not so much economic as
because of regional conflicts like the creation of the State of Israel in 1948 and the
subsequent Arab-Israeli wars, as well as civil wars in Lebanon and Yemen, for instance.
Many of these immigrants were seeking a democratic haven where they could enjoy
45
freedom without political or economic harassment. Moreover, these two waves, unlike
the early one, included large numbers of highly educated professionals as well as
students at American universities who decided to remain there. This constitutes what
Alixa Naff calls the “Arab ‘brain drain’ [which] reached its highest point between 1968
and 1971” (1983: 24).
The first wave of Arab immigrants had been overwhelmingly composed of
Lebanese Christians who, although invariably classified as Syrians, rejected for the
most part any Arab national commitments or identifications, maintaining their cultural
and social links to their home country while seeking assimilation in the US by claiming
their right to be categorized as white citizens. The second and third waves of Arab
immigrants, however, proved to be less prone to assimilation since they largely included
Muslims and individuals who maintained strong Arab national identities (Saliba 1999:
311-12). Immigrants who arrived after World War II were better prepared as
“settlement and adjustment have been considerably easier” for them, for “they have the
advantages of education, language, specials skills, and the communities and precedents
already established by the Syrians” (Naff 1983: 24). Furthermore, these highly
politicized and nationalistic new immigrants were familiar with the Pan-Arab
movement in their homelands, so that they “have succeeded in arousing ethnic loyalty
among the Americanized generations and have also taught them what their parents had
not – that the label Arab includes both Muslims and Christians” (Naff 1983: 25). The
recent immigrants were considerably less sectarian than early immigrants who were
united and divided by social and religious issues rather than by broad political
questions. However, this sectarian allegiance gradually declined among the latter’s
American-born descendants. This emerging consciousness was in many ways steadily
shaped by the events back in the Arab world, so much so that the Syrian-Lebanese
46
clubs, which had had a predominantly social agenda in the beginning, started to shift
towards politics. In parallel with the associations created by the new arrivals, these
clubs started to become unified under regional federations whose objective was to
inform American public opinion about Arab countries and attempt to influence policy in
the United States toward that part of the world. As Naff asserts, “these organizations
initiated the consciousness-raising process in the United States that would accelerate
after the 1967 Arab-Israeli war” (183: 26).
Another war in the Old World represents a new turning point in the history of
the Arab presence in the United States. “As World War I had marked a watershed for
the early Arab immigrants, the 1967 Arab-Israeli war did for the entire community”
(Suleiman 1999: 10). The “Six-Day War” in June 1967, widely known as Al-Naksah in
Arabic (the Setback), was a trauma for both Arab American communities, the older and
the newer; and the shock was actually three-sided. The unexpected victory of Israel over
the neighboring Arab countries resulted in the loss of the rest of historic Palestine,
including East Jerusalem, which fell under Israeli military occupation, as well as the
occupation of extensive territories from Jordan, Syria and Egypt. Arab nations and most
Arabs all over the world felt humiliated by the defeat. Christian Arab Americans, for
instance, worried about the fate of Christians in the Holy Land, as the war led to the
displacement of thousands of Palestinians, Christians and Muslims alike, outside of
their territories. Arab Americans, as Philip Kayal explains, felt “the very seat of their
religious origins is threatened with extinction” (1983: 57). Arab churches contributed to
the efforts of fund raising “for all the refugees whether Christian or Muslim and
regardless of nationality” (57). The fate of their homelands was the motive for an
increasing concern, emphasized by their unanimous support of the Palestinian-Arab
47
population and opposition to Israel and the Zionist project in the region. In this
perspective,
A particular issue which has especially distressed the Syrian-Lebanese
community in America has been Israel’s change in the status of
Jerusalem, a city sacred to Muslims and Christians alike. The Israeli
annexation of East Jerusalem represented a radical distortion of the city’s
historical and spiritual significance. It has further confirmed the
suspicion that Zionism set apart the Jews as “special people” with unique
rights and privileges which would be exercised at the expense of other
people. (1983: 57)
Kayal mentions the example of the Antiochian (Syrian) Orthodox as the most outspoken
Arab American Christians who
went on record urging the then United Nations Secretary General UThant to convene the Secretary Council to scrutinize breaches in the 1967
General Assembly resolution protesting the annexation of the Arab
section of Jerusalem by Israel. This annexation, they argued, was forced
in unilateral defiance of world opinion and international and moral law.
The recent physical changes made in Jerusalem by Israeli occupation
forces were also condemned, since the changes were made arbitrarily and
without regard for the wishes of the indigenous inhabitants. (1983: 5758)
Apart from the consequences of the 1967 war on the Arab homelands, Arab Americans
were shocked and disappointed by the U.S. official support of Israel, and most
importantly US media one-sided and pro-Israeli reporting on the Middle East. Arab
Americans were dismayed by the increasing hostility and anti-Arab bias in the
American press. Kayal points out that the negative portrayal of Arabs as well as their
culture reached such an extent that Arab Americans believed “their image in the mass
media was foreign to their own experience and self-understanding. They became tired
of being the victims of the ‘new racism’ which blames all Arabs for the suffering of the
Jews, when in fact, Arab nations sheltered the world’s persecuted (Armenians,
Circassians, Jews and others) for centuries” (56). The enemies of Israel were
consistently portrayed in U.S. media as “the Arabs,” a designation that was intended to
48
demonize the people belonging to the Arab World who were actively resisting Ottoman,
European and Zionist colonial regimes. This compelled Arab Americans to rethink their
identities in response to U.S. government policies and American media representation.
More and more members of the community started to call themselves “Arabs,” in
solidarity with the people being savaged in the American media.
As Michael Suleiman comments, “the war itself also produced soul-searching on
the part of many Arab Americans, old and new, and often reinforced and strengthened
their Arab identity” (1999: 10). They became more at ease with their Arab background
as this war experience allowed them to positively interpret their Arab origins. In this
respect, Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad points out that, “the realities of prejudices that were
fostered by the sentiments engendered during and after the war were confronted
directly, and Arabs were forced both to articulate and defend their right to be considered
full US citizens” (79-80). The Association of Arab-American University Graduates
(AAUG), for instance, was established in 1967 in order to meet the expectations of
Arab Americans during that period. Suleiman argues that the AAUG “was the first postWorld War II national, credible, nonsectarian organization seeking to represent diverse
elements of the Arab American community and to advance an Arab rather than regional
or country orientation” (1999: 12).
This Association was able to provide forums within the United States to express
an Arab American position on the issues of the day, while at the same
time it aimed to create a space for Arab American academics nationwide, so as to build
and maintain bridges to the Arab world through its publications, conferences and
seminars. Hence, the AAUG was committed to providing accurate scientific,
educational and cultural information about the Arab World necessary for the creation of
a favorable atmosphere for mutual respect and understanding between Arabs and
49
Americans. While the organization’s objectives were mainly educational and
informational, it tried as well to provide adequate means of responding to
discriminatory treatment of Arab Americans in the U. S. It participated in the fostering
of a generation of Arab-Americans who, though professionally successful and culturally
assimilated, strongly adhered to the cultural and linguistic unity of the Arabs. The
AAUG, therefore, tried to revive and strengthen the ties between Arab Americans and
the Arab World, and to enhance their own perception of themselves as Americans with
an Arab heritage. In this respect, Kayal considers that besides the 1967 war, the creation
of the AAUG was “another milestone in the evolution of an Arab-American ethnopolitical community” (1983: 59).
The increasing political tensions between America and the Arab World in the
second half of the twentieth century, especially following the 1967 Arab-Israeli war,
galvanized a “rising ethnopolitical consciousness” among the Arab American
community, while simultaneously instigating, according to Arab American scholar
Nadine Naber, “the beginning of [the community’s] social, political, and cultural
marginalization” (1998: 3). The rise of this consciousness was paralleled by the
surfacing of an important body of Arab American literature oriented rather towards
poetry, and waving between the ethnic discourse and themes independent from ethnic
perspectives. The writers who were prolific during what Elmaz Abinader describes as
the “transitional period” in Arab American literature, extending from the late sixties to
the late eighties, would pave the path to the next generation of Arab American literary
production highly oriented towards an Arab American context. Abinader considers that
contemporary Arab American writers are linked to their early twentieth-century
precedents, mainly Al Mahjar writers, by the “transitional” writers like Samuel Hazo,
D. H. Melhem, Etel Adnan. They “distinguished themselves initially as writers
50
independent of ethnic categorization who later donned the cloak of the Arab American
identity… [These writers] have paved the way for the current generation of Arab
American writers, of which they are still very much a part” (2000: 12).
Hazo, with his nearly thirty-year poetic career, is the founder of the International
Poetry Forum at the University of Pittsburgh in 1966. In 1993 he was appointed the first
official State Poet of Pennsylvania. As for the poet, novelist and scholar D. H. Melhem,
her first poetry volume entitled Notes on the 94th Street (1972) has been recognized as
the first poetry collection in English by an Arab American woman, although the poems
do not focus specifically on Arab American identity. Rather, the poems illustrate life in
New York, evoking the atmosphere of the city’s Upper West Side. Her book entitled
Heroism in the New Black Poetry (UPK, l990) was undertaken with a National
Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship and won an American Book Award in l99l.
Melhem’s clear introductions and frank interviews provide insight into the
contemporary social and political consciousness of six acclaimed women poets. She
“has developed a recognition of the importance of the underrepresented cultures in
American literature. Her critical studies of African American writers – in particular
Gwendolyn Brooks – have been highly praised” (Abinader 2000:13). In addition,
Melhem has helped Arab American literature by organizing the first Arab American
poetry reading at the annual meeting of the Modern Language Association in 1984. The
poet, artist and novelist Etel Adnan, on the other hand, has a more international than
American reputation. Although her early works were written in French, most of her later
ones were written in English. Her first poetry volume Moonshots was published in
1966. She has made an important contribution to feminist and postcolonial literature
through her novel Sitt Marie Rose, first published in French in 1977, and then translated
into English in 1982. The novel, a fiercely feminist portrayal of the Lebanese civil war,
51
has recently attained the status of “an underground classic” (Majaj and Amireh 2002:
13).
Abinader notes that these writers and poets “were not only a bridge between the
two highly enculturated generations but also direct links between Arab American
writing and the American literary canon” (2000: 13). In this way, the important and
formative investigations of U.S.-based identity issues, as well as international concerns,
presented by figures such as Hazo, Melhem, and Adnan significantly contributed toward
setting the stage for a full-blown flourishing of Arab American literature during the last
two decades of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first century.
Poetry dominated the Arab American literary production of the period which
culminated in the publication of a small volume of poetry in 1982 entitled Wrapping the
Grape Leaves: a Sheaf of Contemporary Arab-American Poets, edited by Gregory
Orfalea, and published by the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, within a
year of its founding. This landmark publication, being the first Arab American
anthology, significantly revealed the evolution of Arab Americans’ sense of themselves.
Six years later, a larger and more comprehensive anthology was published. Edited by
Orfalea and Sharif Elmusa, Grape Leaves: A Century of Arab-American Poetry
represents what Majaj calls “a major event” as “its presence in bookstores and on library
shelves made it possible for general readers to discover ‘Arab American Literature’ as a
category on computer data-bases and in card catalogues” (1996: 71-72). The collection
includes the works of some twenty poets ranging from Gibran and Rihani to Americanborn poets who came of age after the 1960’s. The publication of both anthologies,
therefore, marked a defining moment in the history of Arab American literature, as not
only do they provide readers and scholars with a resource center for Arab American
writers, but they also represent an important location for the self-representation of Arab
52
Americans in the articulation of their identity. Karen Kilcup states that “composing an
anthology creates a miniature canon” (2000: 37), which suggests the role of these two
collections in asserting the existence and presence of Arab writers and poets. In this
way, both anthologies created a sense of an Arab American literary community, and
introduced Arab American works to a new audience. Hence, literary anthologies
provide good material for the study of Arab American engagement with race and
racialization. In this context, Michelle Hartman points out that
anthologies reinforce community identification with specific prize
qualities, often identified as inherent qualities. Very often these essential
characteristics are drawn upon to firm up and solidify community
identity, such as poetry being in the “Arab blood” or the closeness of
family and kinship ties. Because they are often deemed inherent and
essential, such notions then contribute to the process of racialization of
Arab Americans in the Unites States. (172)
However, Majaj notes that the predominance of poetry in Arab American
literary production did not make it accessible to mainstream audiences. Arab American
writers leaned rather towards verse to assert their identity, and therefore celebrate their
ethnicity. She argues that
Given our history of both exclusion and invisibility, it is no surprise that
Arab-American writers have felt the need to celebrate who we are and to
mourn what we have lost. But as a genre, poetry has not always provided
a forum within which we have been able to probe the full complexity of
our experience as Arab-Americans, or to levy a sustained critique of our
internal community dynamics. (1999: 70)
Majaj highlights the importance of the shift towards prose writing, whether fiction or
non-fiction, as being more expansive and explanatory than the lyric mode. In this
context, the early 1990’s witnessed the emergence of a growing body of Arab American
literature leaning towards prose writing. Majaj mentions an explanation rather
“sociological in focus: we have produced more poetry than prose because as a small and
53
beleaguered ethnic group we have only recently begun to feel established enough to turn
to serious literary endeavors” (1999: 69).
While the predominance of poetry in early Arab American literature can be
explained by the strong poetic tradition in the Arab homeland, it also makes reference to
the experience of other ethnic groups in the United States such as Asian Americans. In
this context, the central genre of the Asian American movement of the seventies was
poetry and not prose. Bridge, an early Asian American magazine which allocated
considerable space to culture, dedicated an issue to Asian American poetry in 1976.
Moreover, “the first Asian American literary magazine, Aion, was founded by two
poets; and anthologies such as Roots: An Asian American Reader included generous
selections of poetry— and no fiction” (Yu, 288-89).
1.4 Embracing Arab American Ethnicity
Arab American literature began to flower in the 1990’s. This period opened the
way for the publication of a growing literary body produced by Arab American writers,
and the acquiring of an increasing mainstream audience. Judith Gabriel points out that
“in the last decade of the 20th century, a new generation of Arab American writers came
of age, immigrants and the descendents of immigrants, those who were born here and
speak nary a word of Arabic, and connected in varying degrees to their heritage culture”
(2001).6 The contemporary Arab American writers’ contribution is so significant as
Arab American literature is growing more sophisticated in scope and wider in content.
This literature represents the voices of the community and tries to translate Arab
American characterizations into wider cultural contexts. These writers are more and
Gabriel, Judith. “Emergence of a Genre: Reviewing Arab American Writers.” Al Jadid,
Vol. 7, Nº34, Winter 2001. 20 March 2004. http://old.aljadid.com/essays_and_features/0734gabriel.html
6
54
more challenging established cultural and racial boundaries in their articulation of Arab
American identity. This dissertation studies some of the major issues and themes
handled by a majority of contemporary Arab American writers, and thus hopes to
contribute to the efforts aiming to situate Arab American literature within the broad
spectrum of American letters.
Majaj highlights “contemporary writers’ efforts to grapple more directly with the
racialization and politicization of Arab American experience and to assert their Arab
American identity without apology” (2000: 330). They are consciously building bridges
to other communities of color as part of their struggle to reinforce the Arab American
discourse within its American multicultural context, and therefore help Arab Americans
to be recognized as a minority group within the US social, cultural and literary arenas.
However, racial classification remains one of the challenges facing the community. The
US Census Bureau situates it within the “white/Caucasian” category, which prevents the
community from enjoying a legal position within the spectrum of minority groups
which would allow it to legally articulate its communal concerns about discrimination.
While they are still officially white, “the interjection of race issues circled around the
proposition that Arabs are not quite white” (Samhan 1999: 219). In fact, Samhan
considers that the official classification of Arab Americans from the Middle East and
North Africa “as part of the white majority” does not resolve confusions regarding their
racial status (1999: 219).These ambiguous racial positions convey the Arab American
collective’s history in the United States, from early Arab immigration to the present
time, as the community’s identity has been transformed “from nonwhite, to white, to
somewhere outside the limits of racial categories” (Saliba 1999: 311). From this
perspective, Louise Cainkar notes how “Arabs have experienced the double burden of
being excluded from whiteness and from mainstream recognition as people of color”
55
(2008: 49). Not only are they considered “not quite white” but also “not of color
enough.”
This complex location of Arab Americans in multicultural America further
complicates the unstable Arab American identity. Their white classification is rather
what Majaj describes as a “merely ‘honorary’ status” allowing the group a tentative
access to American white society, while this “whiteness” turns to be “readily stripped
away at moments of crisis” (1999: 321). As I have already mentioned, this ambiguous
status of “honorary whiteness,” on the one hand, allows the exclusion of Arab
Americans from the white category, and, on the other, prevents them from having an
ethnic minority status. Consequently, the Arab American community is evidently
situated in an unstable racial space, which increases its precariousness and vulnerability
to racism and discrimination. In this context, Nabeel Abraham argues that “unlike other
forms of racism, anti-Arab racism is often tolerated by mainstream society” (1994:
170). Majaj states that “the hostility towards Arabs, Muslims, and Middle Easterners in
the United States that peaked during the 1980’s and that continues to spiral during
periods of political tension has not abated. It appears that Arab Americans are one of the
few ethnic groups which is still ‘safe to hate’” (1999: 321).
September 11, for instance, is a significant representative of those “moments of
[national] crisis” that serve to position Arab Americans under an interrogative and
suspicious light. The perpetuation of stigmatized views and the isolation of the whole
community left it an open target for collective punishments after the World Trade
Center attacks. Reducing the community to a handful of essentialist constructions and
negative stereotypes helps conceal its complexity and diversity.
These terrorist attacks were no doubt a shock for the whole community as they
represented the falling apart of Arab Americans’ attempts to integrate in American
56
society. This forcibly and even violently acquired visibility embodies a serious
impediment to the hopes of many generations struggling hard to find a place for
themselves in America. In this respect, Elie Chalala, the editor of Al Jadid Journal,
explains the following:
It is useless to search for the right words to express the inexpressible pain
that followed the horrible death of thousands… but there is another
source of this pain: the severe blow that has been struck against the
accomplishment made by Arab-Americans toward correcting centuries of
stereotypes of both themselves and Arabs in the Middle East.7
In fact, this situation helped the vulnerable community realize the need to come together
to defend themselves as well as their interests as American citizens. In addition to that,
they are also faced with the necessity of defending their Arab heritage, and therefore,
their identity as Arab Americans. This double burden they are confronted with does not
seem to make it easy for Arab Americans in the United States. Moreover, this very idea
of belonging is now at stake, which further complicates their task of protecting and
defending their proclaimed hyphenated identity.
What is more, the increasing political focus on Arab Americans in the United
States does not exactly reduce their invisibility, nor does it result in a more accurate
understanding of their complex cultural, linguistic, or national make up. In this
dissertation, I aim to shed light on this group that I consider to be part of the
multicultural fabric in the United States, and therefore, linked to other ethnic groups
such as African Americans, Asian Americans, and Native Americans, among others.
Contemporary Arab American literature reflects, I believe, the community’s quest to
regain its own voice and achieve self-representation. Likewise, Arab American writers
7
Chalala, Elie. “Arab Americans after September 11 th : Rethinking Ideas not Carved in
Stone.”Al Jadid, Vol. 7, Nº 36, 2001.
<http://www.aljadid.com/editors/0736chalala.html>
57
play the important role, through the themes they handle, in guiding the community in
this quest to locate this communal hyphenated identity.
58
CHAPTER 2
59
60
CHAPTER 2
THEORIZING CONTEMPORARY ARAB AMERICAN LITERATURE
2.1 Defining the Third Space
Identity is constructed according to multiple discourses and ideologies at the
same time, which means that one’s subjectivity or identity is multiple. It is also
“overdetermined,” in the sense that it is not determined by only one discourse or
ideology, but rather by innumerable ones. This concept goes back to the turn of the
twentieth century among African American intellectuals such as Ralph Ellison, who
argues that identity is forged rather than given, and created rather than determined by
biology or social statistics.
This makes the individuals able to speak from any of their multiple subject
positions, which allows this multiply-constructed subjecthood to provide infinite
possibilities for what constitutes an identity. The idea of hybridity refers to a mixed
location where subjects do not belong to any unified or stable positions. This concept,
indeed, deconstructs and destabilizes any stable binary opposition or category, as the
hybrid position constitutes a place where categories are crossed, and where a space
between defined subject positions is created. From this position, Homi Bhabha starts to
shed light on possible different perceptions of national identities and national
boundaries. He disapproves of the definition of selfhood along ethnocentric notions
referring to a supposedly unitary set of beliefs and practices. The scholar challenges
these ethnocentric elements of selfhood and identity when he mentions dissident and
dislocated voices belonging to individuals whose identities are excluded from these
theoretically stable and fixed categories. He suggests that the identity of the migrant, for
61
instance, is as a kind of hybridity and thus a challenge to stable categories of national
identity. Therefore, Bhabha claims
the need to think beyond narratives of originary and initial subjectivities
and to focus on those moments of processes that are produced in the
articulation of cultural differences. These “in-between” spaces provide
the terrain for elaborating strategies of selfhood – singular or communal
– that initiate new signs of identity, and innovative sites of collaboration,
and contestation, in the act of defining the idea of society itself. (1994: 2)
Bhabha sheds light on what is implied in the naming of a critical theory as
“Western,” a designation which conveys “institutional power and ideological
Eurocentricity.” This Western-labeled critical theory arises from the colonial tradition
of engaging “with texts within the familiar traditions and conditions of colonial
anthropology either to universalize their meaning within its own cultural and academic
discourse, or to sharpen its internal critique of the Western logocentric sign, the idealist
subject, or indeed the illusions and delusions of civil society” (45). Bhabha calls it “a
familiar manoeuvre of theoretical knowledge,” which while it “opened up the chasm of
cultural difference,” rather tries to confine and contain this difference as well as its
effects through the creation of “a mediator or a metaphor of otherness” to realize this
purpose. This strategy of containment adopted by the knowledge of cultural difference
makes of difference and otherness “the fantasy of a certain cultural space or, indeed, the
certainty of a form of a theoretical knowledge that deconstructs the epistemological
‘edge’ of the West” (45-46). The Other is deprived of a real space where it can actively
articulate its difference, as it is actually restricted to a powerless and passive presence.
Hence, “the Other loses its power to signify, to negate, to initiate its historic desire, to
establish its own institutional and oppositional discourse” (46).
Taking into account the tension within critical theory “between its institutional
containment and its revisionary force,” Bhabha doubts the ability of critical theory to
62
provide a balanced reference to other cultures, and consequently, it “cannot forever
sustain its position in the academy as the adversarial cutting edge of Western idealism”
(47). He suggests the creation of a “new territory of translation,” and therefore the
modification of the politics of cultural domination. He draws a distinction between
“cultural diversity” and what he terms “cultural difference,” an allusion to the term
“différence/différance” so central to Post-Structuralist thinking. In this way, Bhabha
perceives it as the play of difference, rather than pure distinction, between these two
terms. If cultural diversity is an “object of empirical knowledge,” cultural difference is
“the process of the enunciation of culture as knowledgeable, authoritative, adequate to
the construction of systems of cultural identification.” He remarks that while cultural
diversity is a “category of comparative ethics, aesthetics, or ethnology,” cultural
difference is a “process of signification through which statements of or on culture
differentiate”. Furthermore, Bhabha states that
Cultural diversity is the recognition of pre-given cultural “contents” and
customs, held in a time-frame of relativism; it gives rise to anodyne
liberal notions of multiculturalism, cultural exchange, or the culture of
humanity. Cultural diversity is also the representation of a radical
rhetoric of the separation of totalized cultures that live unsullied by the
intertextuality of their historical locations, safe in the Utopianism of a
mythic memory of a unique collective identity (50).
On the other hand, and through the concept of cultural difference, he affirms that the
“problem of the cultural interaction emerges only at the significatory boundaries of
culture, where meanings and values are (mis)read or signs misappropriated” (50). He
argues, moreover, that this concept highlights “the ambivalence of cultural authority:
the attempt to dominate in the name of a cultural supremacy which is itself produced
only in the moment of differentiation” (51). Bhanha adds that “the enunciative process”
of culture
63
introduces a split in the performative present of cultural identification; a
split between the traditional culturalist demand for a model, a tradition, a
community, a stable system of reference, and the necessary negation of
the certitude in the articulation of new cultural demands, meanings,
strategies in the political present, as a practice of domination, or
resistance (51).
Bhabha’s aim in pointing out the différance between cultural diversity and
cultural difference is to stress the need to rethink the traditional notions of cultural
identity which have informed the process of decolonization – what Bhabha alludes to as
an antagonistic view of “culture-as-political-struggle” (52) – and the concomitant
growth of nationalism – what Bhabha terms “constant national principles” (52) – in the
Post-colonial world. His point is that both these notions, although ostensibly radical,
have, ironically, been derived from archaic and antagonistic notions of identity and
cultural conflict which reached their apogee in nineteenth century Europe and which are
predicated on a belief in the possibility of the purity of cultural identity, the organic
notion that a given community is united by its common “roots,” and the possibility of
“self-expression.” Bhabha offers instead a “critique of the positive aesthetic and
political values we ascribe to the unity or totality of cultures, especially those that have
known long and tyrannical histories of domination and misrecognition. Cultures are
never unitary in themselves, nor simply dualistic in relation of Self to Other” (52).
Bhabha believes this to be true. He emphasizes that this is not because he
believes in “some humanistic nostrum that beyond individual cultures we all belong to
the human culture of mankind” (52). Rather, the “reason a cultural text or system of
meaning cannot be sufficient unto itself is that the act of cultural enunciation – the place
of an utterance – is crossed by the différance of writing” (52). In other words,
influenced by the views of Émile Benveniste, Bhabha is arguing that identity,
individually or en masse, is never pre-given: it must be enunciated. Moreover,
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subjectivity is less the origin of any utterance about the self than its product, hence the
reference to the “disjuncture between the subject of a proposition (énoncé) and the
subject of enunciation” (53).
What is at stake in any attempt to articulate the identity of a culture is the
“structure of symbolic representation” (52) itself, to be precise, the “‘différence’ in the
process of language that is crucial to the production of meaning and ensures, at the same
time, that meaning is never simply mimetic and transparent” (53). However, Bhabha
expands Derrida’s focus on langue to include Benveniste’s focus on ‘discourse’ or
parole: he coins the term the “Third Space” (53) to denote the fact that the “production
of meaning requires . . . both the general conditions of language and the specific
implication of the utterance in a performative and institutional strategy of which it
cannot ‘in itself’ be conscious” (53). By the latter, Bhabha means the “discursive
embeddedness and address [of the subject of enunciation], its cultural positionality, its
reference to a present time and a specific space” (53). The “intervention of the Third
Space . . . makes the structure of meaning and reference an ambivalent process” (54)
and “destroys this mirror of representation” (54) which we mistakenly equate to
language.
The Third Space which informs any utterance consequently “challenges our
sense of the historical identity of culture as a homogenizing, unifying force,
authenticated by the originary past, kept alive in the national tradition of the People”
(54), whether this be European or Post-colonial nations. The Third Space, which
“constitutes the discursive conditions of enunciation” (55), “displaces the narrative of
the Western [and indeed Post-colonial] nation which . . . [is] written in homogeneous,
serial time” (54) by virtue of the “disruptive temporality of enunciation” (54). All
“cultural statements and systems are constructed in this contradictory and ambivalent
65
space of enunciation” (55) as a result of which “hierarchical claims to the inherent
originality or ‘purity’ of cultures are untenable” (55). The discursive conditions of
enunciation ensure “that the meaning and symbols of culture have no primordial unity
or fixity; that even the same signs can be appropriated, translated, rehistoricized, and
read anew” (55).
As a result, the bearers of a “hybrid identity” (55) are “caught in the
discontinuous time of translation and negotiation” (55) as a result of which they are
“now free to negotiate and translate their cultural identities in a discontinuous
intertextual temporality of cultural difference” (55). Consequently, the “native
intellectual who identifies the people with the ‘true national culture’ will be
disappointed” (55). In short, the recognition of the “split-space of enunciation” (55) will
open the way to “conceptualizing an international culture, based not on the exoticism or
multiculturalism of the diversity of cultures, but on the inscription and articulation of
culture’s hybridity” (55). To conclude, Bhabha says that
We should remember that it is the “inter”— the cutting edge of
translation and negotiation, the in-between space – that carries the burden
of the meaning of culture. It makes it possible to begin envisaging
national, anti-nationalist histories of the “people”. And by exploring this
“Third Space”, we may elude the politics of polarity and emerge as the
others of our selves (56).
The Third Space, therefore, is a way of framing the liminal which allows hybrid
individuals to create a space where they can articulate their cultural difference. In this
space, they are able to invent their own history and renew their past, “refiguring it as a
contingent in-between space that innovates and interrupts the performance of the
present” (7). Hence, Arab American literature is the very articulation of this idea, as its
different phases display the different episodes the Arab American community has gone
through during more than one century of presence in the United States of America. In
66
this dissertation, I am going to explore the negotiation of the Third Space in some
contemporary Arab American novels.
2.2 Redefining the Third Space According to Contemporary Arab
American Discourse:
Contemporary Arab American academics have recently started to pay more
attention to the legacy inherited by early Arab American writers who, as Layla Al
Maleh expresses it, were “able to negotiate boundaries beyond the spaces of their birthplace, an in-dwelling contentment quite unlike the expressions of pain and agonizing
dislocation that characterize postcolonial hybridity of late” (4). 8 Al Maleh uses R.
Radhakrishnan’s terms to describe how these writers were “ensconced comfortably in
the heartland of both national and transnational citizenship” (159).9 She states that theirs
was “a hybridity that undoubtedly helped them negotiate the ‘identity politics’ of their
place of origin and their chosen abode with less tension than their successors” (4). In
this context, I will trace the itinerary followed by contemporary Arab American writers
to articulate hybridity and, therefore, negotiate the Third Space through their works.
In their efforts to carve a place for Arab American discourse within mainstream
American literature and at the same time among minority literatures in the United
States, contemporary Arab American writers seem to be aware of their cultural
background, being “the descendents of a rich heritage, with a shared history, the wealth
of a much-respected literature, and an esteemed language”. More importantly, they have
the mission to
8
Al Maleh, Layla, ed. Arab Voices in Diaspora. Amsterdam: Rodopi B. V. , 2009.
Radhakrishnan, R. Diasporic Mediations. Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press,
1996.
9
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negotiate identities from a vantage-point with firm links to Arab history,
even when they were second or third-generation writers. Indeed, much of
what they wrote still reflected a warm relationship to the homeland
despite the authors’ geographical distance from it (Al Maleh, 12-13).
The vital growth of this emerging literature is helping Arab American writers in
their attempts to regain their discourse as they “found ‘home’ and acceptance in
ethnicity” (24). In this way, the work of most contemporary Arab American writers
reflects a deep awareness of their hyphenated identity, and embodies an exploration of
the spaces situated in each side of the hyphen. In addition to that, the treatment that
Arab Americans have long suffered at the hands of the most part of mainstream
America helped them realize the importance of exercising self-representation in order to
achieve social, political and religious equality in the United States. In their effort to
counteract being constantly received as “outsiders” since the end of the nineteenth
century, they struggle to find themselves a significant place within American culture.
For that purpose, literature becomes an important means to realize such selfrepresentation, bringing to light the unheard stories and experiences of a community.
In the foreword of Scheherazade’s Legacy: Arab and Arab American Women on
Writing (2004), Barbara Nimri Aziz, journalist and founder of RAWI (Radius of Arab
American Writers), points out that like other minority groups before, Arab American
writers have come to realize the importance of the “write or be written” principle. She
believes that “facing the sweet and bitter, tussling with disorder, hate, fear, is asserting
our responsibility, a responsibility we once had left to others” (xii). Aziz argues that
after decades of misrepresentations and “half truths,” Arab Americans “must decide
what is really true and what is false, then negotiate those and add to this our own hidden
experience” (xii). To illustrate her opinion, she mentions Toni Morrison
who once described writing as a process by which a person goes to a place and
moves dirt in order to understand why he or she is there at all. All writers are
68
miners, sifting through the little things overlooked or abandoned or discolored
by others. This is where Arab American writers are today, first going to the
place and moving the dirt” (xiii).
Nimri highlights the importance of “minor details” in recreating and conveying
the collective memory of Arab Americans as a minority group. She identifies these
details as “the ‘little things’ we are able to identify and recover [from Arab American
communal and individual histories],” making, therefore, a story more “poignant” and
relative (xiii). The role played by Arab American literature in exposing these “little
things,” according to Nimri, “may not overturn centuries of injustice, and it will not
propel us into a position of dominance. But we can at least write our story… Writers
cannot dispute. But we can locate ourselves at that archaeological site, and build new
stories from the little things we reclaim” (xiii-xiv).The presence of these details from
Arab American heritage in literary production not only serves to voice the Arab
American experience to a mainstream audience, and therefore, humanize it, but also to
enhance inter-community connections and help “rebuild a fragmented, uncertain
identity” (xiii). In my opinion, Arab American writers have the task of helping the
community locate and enjoy a communal hyphenated identity taking into account its
complexity and varied features.
Stuart Hall argues that cultural identity is not a fixed static noun. It is a verb. He
writes that cultural identity
is a matter of ‘becoming’ as well as ‘being.’ It belongs to a future as
much as to the past. It is not something which already exists,
transcending place, time, history and culture. Cultural identities come
from somewhere, have histories. But like everything which is historical,
they undergo constant transformation. Far from being eternally fixed in
some essentialized past, they are subject to the continuous ‘play’ of
history, culture and power. (225)
69
In this way, the unstable racial categorization of the Arab American community further
problematizes the sense of belonging and identification among the members of this
group. Most Arab American writers are definitely aware of the need to enhance their
ties as a community in order to face vulnerability as well as invisibility. In this sense,
these writers’ focus on ethnicity embodies an act of proclamation of hybridity as the
essence of an Arab American identity being an exclusive part of the mosaic of ethnic
America. They try to straddle both sides of the hyphen through validating their
American identity and their Arab origin.
This double consciousness – a term coined by the African American intellectual
W. E. B. Du Bois – leads Arab American writers to more and more address issues
pertaining to their own experiences. For this reason, we can find a multitude of novels
and memoirs holding strong connections with the Arab homeland, and whose titles
invoke these links, such as Evelyn Shakir’s Bint Arab: Arab and Arab American
Women in the United States (1997), Elmaz Abinader’s The Children of Roojme: A
Family’s Journey from Lebanon (1991), Mohja Kahf’s The girl in the Tangerine Scarf
(2006), Samia Serageldine’s Cairo House (2000), Laila Halaby’s The West of the
Jordan (2003), and Diana Abu-Jaber’s Arabian Jazz (1993), Crescent (2003) and The
Language of Baklava (2005), among others.
From my point of view, this cultural affinity with the Old World reminds of
Wilson Harris’s concept of “architectonic fossil spaces” (2). 10 Harris refers to the
French biologist Jacques Monod, who states that “every living being is also a fossil.
Within it, all the way down to the microscopic structure of its proteins, it bears the
traces if not the stigmata of its ancestry” (160). Harris agrees with Monod as he
highlights the importance of the past and/or ancestry in the construction of one’s
10
Harris, Wilson. Fossil and Psyche. Austin: Occasional Publication African and Afro-American Studies
and Research Center, The University of Texas at Austin, 1974.
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identity, as everybody carries within oneself the floating fossil identities that dominate
the psyche. He argues that one could awaken these lethargic fossils through an
expedition into the past, which is to perform a productive dialogue with this heritage.
This implies the importance of the way we approach the past and cultural origins
because a constructive process can be adopted in order to unleash the possibilities of
creativity and progress. This fruitful process allows the creation of a meeting point, that
is to say, a Third Space, gathering different spaces in a constant dialogue and
negotiation. In fact, contemporary Arab American literature embodies this process as
these writers deal with the question of hybridity and the doubling of significance in their
characters’ search for an in-between space where they can make possible this identity
negotiation.
Arab American literature is undoubtedly a growing field of ethnic American
literature, which explains these writers’ identification with other ethnic groups. In this
context, Andrea Shalal-Esa asserts that Arab American writers “are consciously
building bridges to other communities of color… They are wielding their pens to
chronicle decades of racism, oppression and marginalization in the United States, and to
begin uncovering the particularities of their own ethnic histories.”11 In this way, Lisa
Suhair Majaj highlights the importance of extending cross-cultural lines for Arab
American literature. She argues that
The question of how to establish connections and coalitions across ethnic
boundaries is of increasing importance within Arab-American discourse.
Given the marginalization of Arab Americans within American culture
and the on-going reality of anti-Arab discrimination and violence, the
need to focus on protecting and strengthening Arab Americans as a group
remains strong. However, it is also increasingly clear that ethnic identity
cannot be constructed in isolation. (1999: 325)
11
Shalal-Esa, Andrea. “Arab American Writers Identify With Communities of Color”.
Al Jadid Magazine, Vol. 9, Nos. 42/43 (Winter/Spring 2003)
<http://www.aljadid.com/content/arab-american-writers-identify-communities-color>
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For Arab American writers, therefore, the proclamation of hybridity and speaking out
from the ranks of the minority goes hand in hand with fomenting a coalition with other
people of color in the United States.
We can find the traces of such identification with other minority groups in the
famous poem entitled “Sand Nigger,” from the poetry collection Curriculum Vitae
(1988) by the Arab American poet and attorney Lawrence Joseph. Born in Detroit in
1948, he was the grandchild of Lebanese and Syrian Catholic immigrants. Lisa Suhair
Maja states that Joseph was “one of the first [Arab American] writers to bring racial
categories in relation to Arab-American experience to the foreground.”12 In this poem,
Joseph addresses the color line saying,
“Sand nigger,” I’m called,
and the name fits: I am
the light-skinned nigger
with black eyes and the look
difficult to figure--a look
of indifference, a look to kill—
a Levantine nigger
in the city of the strait
between the great lakes Erie and St. Clair
which has a reputation
for violence, an enthusiastically
bad-tempered sand nigger
who waves his hands, nice enough
to pass, Lebanese enough (29).
While he acknowledges his Lebanese roots, Joseph constructs an identity negotiation
through the use of common stereotypes about Arabs. His appropriation of such a
derogatory label as “sand nigger” makes him aware of his own ethnic identity, and
consequently, he somehow accepts this marginalization forced on him and his
community. He even claims that the Arab American experience should be placed in its
American context of black-white tension. Therefore, Joseph identifies with other groups
12
Majaj, Lisa Suhair. “Arab-American Literature: Origins and Developments.” American Studies journal.
Number 52. 2008. 29 June 2009.
<http://www.asjournal.org/archive/52/150.html>
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equally labeled whether along racial or religious or even economic lines by mainstream
America, and in this way, he celebrates interracial solidarity among these marginalized
communities.
The work of the prominent Palestinian American poet Suheir Hammad embodies
this approach as well. Born in Jordan to Palestinian refugee parents in 1973, she moved
to the States at the age of five. She grew up in a racially diverse neighborhood in
Brooklyn, New York, among Puerto Ricans, African Americans, Dominicans, etc. This
multiethnic background strengthened her will to cross ethnic and religious lines, which
illustrates her solidarity and union as well as identification with globally disfranchised
people of color. In an interview with Nathalie Handal, Hammad says that she
remembers “the first time I wrapped my hair in a gele, an African head wrap. Using
material from Senegal, I wanted to wrap myself in the beauty of sisterhood. The
ancestors remembered my name and whispered it to me under the material.”13
Hammad’s first poetry collection entitled Born Palestinian, Born Black (1996) voices
this sense of solidarity as well as the poet’s political and humanitarian activism through
her concern with thematic parallels between the experience of African Americans and
that of Palestinians. In the poem entitled “open poem to those who rather we not read…
or breathe,” she says:
we
children of children exiled from the homelands
descendents of immigrants denied jobs and toilets
carry continents in our eyes
survivors of the Middle Passage
we
stand
and demand recognition of our humanity
starving for education
we feed on the love of our people (73)
13
Handal, Nathalie. “Drops of Suheir Hammad: A Talk with a Palestinian Poet Born Black.”
Al Jadid Magazine,Vol 3, Nº 20 (Summer 1997)
<http://www.aljadid.com/content/drops-suheir-hammad-talk-palestinian-poet-born-black>
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Hammad makes use of a collective “we” which seems to be an affirmation of a shared
interracial alliance. According to Carol Fadda-Conrey, this poem testifies to “a
collective past fraught with subjugation and discrimination (extending to the present),”
and reaffirms that Hammad’s “own Palestinian history of exile cannot be disengaged
from the larger history of imperialism and colonialism that scatter peoples across the
world and sever them from their homelands, whether they are exiles, immigrants, or
descendents of slave-trade victims” (2007: 165).
Hammad is considered to be one of the first Arab American writers to venture
into American vernacular literature, as she incorporates Arabic dialect with English in
many of her poems. Her choice of the performance poetry genre allows her to
experiment and innovate the language used. For instance, in the poem entitled
“dedication” from Born Palestinian, Born Black, the poet writes the following:
his heart transcends his body
he vowed to return to phalasteen
bil roh
bil dem
with his life
with his blood (22)
Here, the vernacular stands out in italics along with the corresponding translation in
English. In this poem, Hammad transliterates the Arabic words according to the exact
dialect pronunciation specific to Palestine. Furthermore, as an accomplished spoken
word performer, she took part in the 2003 Tony award-winning Broadway show and
HBO series hip hop “Def Poetry Jam on Broadway,” which makes her work live not
only on the page but on the stage as well. Hammad’s performance poetry, therefore,
attracts an audience from a variety of cultures and backgrounds due to the wide range of
topics she addresses in her work. But most importantly, perhaps, Arab Americans find
in Hammad’s poetry the language of the Old country that they grew up with intertwined
with the language of their adopted home.
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The search for home remains one of the recurring themes in contemporary Arab
American narrative. Randa Jarrar’s coming-of-age novel entitled A Map of Home (2008)
is praised for its uniqueness, as it is “unlike anything that has been published before it
by Arab American writers.” This novel is “by turns and sometimes all at once funny,
moving, lewd, introspective, crass, sarcastic, witty, crude, and sincere” (Salaita: 2011,
130). The novel chronicles the story of the protagonist and narrator Nidali Ammar from
birth to college. From the beginning, we learn that everything about Nidali is different,
starting from the story of her birth and her very name. Assuming she was a boy, her
father Waheed proceeds to name her Nidal for “struggle,” as “he’d always known I was
a boy, had spoken to me as a boy while I was tucked safely in Mama’s uterus” (Jarrar
2008: 3). As soon as he realizes his mistake, he corrects the name adding an “i” to make
it possessive, meaning “my struggle,” which the mother Fairuza does not appreciate,
and so the reader witnesses a scene of a loud but at the same time humorous argument
between the parents. Fairuza screams at Waheed saying, “I’m changing the girl’s name
right this instant! First you give her a stock boy’s name, as though she’s ready to be a
struggler or a diaper-warrior, then you add a letter and think it’s goddamn unique” (6).
As Steven Salaita states, “the scene of Nidali’s birth sets the novel’s tone,
including as it does a vicious yet humorous fight between her parents, replete with
colorful language, and a narrative that oscillates between serious and lighthearted”
(2011: 131). Just like Jarrar, Nidali was born in the United States to a Palestinian father
and a Greek-Egyptian mother. The Palestinian element plays a dominant role in Nidali’s
sense of identity and belonging. According to her, “Baba said that moving was part of
being Palestinian. ‘Our people carry the homeland in their souls,’ he would tell me at
night as he tucked me in. This was my bedtime story when I was three, four. ‘You can
go wherever you want, but you’ll always have it in your heart’” (Jarrar 2008: 9). Nidali,
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indeed, personifies this nomadic identity as she moves from Boston to Kuwait where
she grows up, and then her family flees to Alexandria, Egypt, during the first Gulf War,
and finally she moves back to the Unites States when she is in high school. Nidali’s
coming-of-age experience, therefore, carries the moral and social adventures she
undertakes in her passage through a number of countries and cultures, and whose
impact is essential to the forging of the girl’s personality and identity forging, and at the
same time, to her awareness of the instability of belonging.
This instability can be detected in one of the tender moments between Nidali and
Waheed. She draws a map of Palestine from memory, shows it to him, and asks, “‘Is
that right?’‘Who knows,’ he said, waving his hand dismissively’” (192). At her
insistence, he says, “There’s no telling where home starts and where it ends.” Then,
Nidali notices that her father’s “eyes were filled with tears” (193). The shadow of
Palestine as an absent home appears again through this question of maps, referring to
the continuously changing aspect of the boundaries separating Israel from the
Palestinian occupied territories. Jarrar addresses a political issue concerning the
dynamic and unstable features of the Palestinian map, in particular, and which is being
constantly reduced as a consequence of Israeli colonization. In this context, Salaita
states that “this instability is commensurate with the complicated lives of the Ammar
family, whose members must constantly redraw maps to itinerant homes” (2011: 134).
Hence, in this atmosphere of homelessness and cultural transplantation, Nidali tries to
find a place for herself in the world through by aiming to have her own voice, to
become a writer.
The Lebanese American writer and painter Rabih Alameddine also explores in
his work the sense of home and/or the homeland in the culturally hybrid experiences of
his Arab American characters. Born in Jordan in 1959 to Lebanese Druze parents, he
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grew up in Kuwait and Lebanon until the age of 17, when he moved to England and
then to California. Author of Koolaids (1999), The Prev (1999), I, the Divine: A Novel
in First Chapters (2001), and The Hakawati (2008), Alameddine works on
multilocational stories and characters situated on two sides of the world, i.e. the Middle
East and America. The images that his works convey of the homeland, in this case
Lebanon, are related to “war, disease, rape, and insanity, all equally dispersed in his
novels to reflect an historical era that is devoid of moral form or meaning” (Al Maleh,
36). This embodies a tendency that has marked much of the emerging body of Arab
American writing from the 1990’s onwards, consisting of “de-mythologizing the
homeland” (Shakir: 2003, 23), and which I intend to address in the next chapter.
I, the Divine (2001) is a complete novel which technically never moves beyond
the first chapter. It is a fragmented narrative attempting to reconstruct the life of an Arab
American woman, Sarah Nour El-Din. The novel carries a collection of the
protagonists’ failed and fragmented attempts to write a novel and a memoir, since she is
unable to put together all the pieces of the story of her life. That is why she only
manages to write the first chapters of her memoirs. Depicting exilic and diasporic Arab
American identities, the novel stresses contemporary transnational connections based
rather on the critical and complex relation with the homeland. Alameddine focuses on
the diasporic experience of Sarah who, born and raised in Beirut to a Lebanese father
and an American mother, witnesses a part of the Lebanese civil war before she moves to
the America at the age of twenty. After falling in love with Omar, both of them decide
to rebel against her Druze family and his Greek Orthodox parents, and elope to New
York where Sarah gives birth to their son. When Omar decides to go back to Lebanon,
she divorces him and stays in New York without her child.
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Sarah spends her time constantly going back and forth between the U.S. and
Lebanon, which constitutes an ongoing process of physical and ideological negotiation
of both cultures. Through Sarah’s story, the novelist addresses personal dislocation as it
is displayed in the following extract: “Can there be any here? No. She understands
there. Whenever she is in Beirut, home is in New York. Whenever she is in New York,
home is Beirut. Home is never where she is but where she is not” (Alameddine 2001:
99). Sarah feels displaced in both “homes” as she does not belong completely in either
of them. Thanks to this transnational standpoint, the protagonist is given a space where
she probes cultural questions and performs this negotiation process in order to reach to
self-understanding.
The novel problematizes national and cultural belonging as the protagonist’s
suspension between the two nations makes her constant border-crossing fluid and
flexible. This position facilitates the articulation of Sarah’s in-between identities
because she is able to examine and evaluate both backgrounds from a critical
perspective. Therefore, Sarah’s fragmented narrative is a reflection of her fragmented
heterogeneous background as her rebellion against her Lebanese family, clan and
principles leads her to try hard to adopt her newfound American individuality. She says:
“I hated Umm Kalthoum.14 I wanted to identify only with my American half. I wanted
to be special. I could not envision how to be Lebanese and keep any sense of
individuality” (229). Here she exposes her binary sense of belonging, identifying
America with individualism and independence, and Lebanon with community and
collectivity. She continues:
I have been blessed with many curses in my life, not the least of which
was being born half Lebanese and half American. Throughout my life,
these contradictory parts battled endlessly, clashed, never coming to a
Umm Kalthoum (1898-1975) was an outstanding Egyptian singer. Known as “Kawkab al-Sharq” (Star
of the East), she was one of the most famous Arab singers, and she is still considered the greatest female
Arab singer in history.
14
78
satisfactory conclusion. I shuffled ad nauseam between the need to assert
my individuality and the need to belong to my clan, being terrified of
loneliness and terrorized of losing myself to relationships. (229)
Sarah does not make clear which component of her fractured self is the burden, but most
importantly she comes to recognize that this inner conflict is the consequence of her
attempts to separate individuality and clan. Then she wonders, “have I begun to realize
that like my city, my American patina covers an Arab soul?” (229).
Hence, Sarah gradually comes to realize that what she really needs is a
combination of individuality and family affection, which helps her come to terms with
her family in which she displays her pride in the closing of the final chapter:
I have tried to write my memoir by telling an imaginary reader to listen to
my story. Come learn about me, I said. But how can I expect readers to
know who I am if I do not tell them about my family, my friends, the
relationships in my life? Who am I if not where I fit in the world, where I
fit in the lives of the people dear to me? I have to explain how the
individual participated in the larger organism to show how I fit into this
larger whole. So instead of telling the reader, Come meet me, I have to
say something else.
Come meet my family.
Come meet my friends.
Come here I say.
Come meet my pride (308).
Sarah, then, realizes that she cannot continue her desperate attempt to escape from her
clan among whom she seems to find a place for herself, and finally coming to terms
with her multiple fragmented selves and countries.
Alameddine’s particular approach to Arab American hybridity in I, the Divine
(2001) is certainly so interesting and worth close attention because he offers the reader
as well as the critic a work of fiction that is totally innovative and experimental both in
form and content. However, in this dissertation my focus will be on the analysis of the
writings of two prominent female Arab American writers, Diana Abu-Jaber and Laila
Halaby. My choice is due to my admiration of and special attraction towards these two
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writers, which takes me back to my first steps along the path of Arab America about ten
years ago.
Before starting the writing of my dissertation for the degree of Diploma de
Estudios Avanzados, I knew from the beginning that I wanted to work on ethnic
literatures in the Unites States, and I had a special inclination towards Chicana writing
in particular. In those days, I had the opportunity to read Sandra Cisnero’s The House
on Mango Street (1984), and I remember that I admired the little Esperanza Cordero and
her dreams and efforts to have a better life out of her Latino barrio while keeping the
promise to come back for the ones she leaves behind. I was so moved by the teenager’s
search for her identity and by the stories of all the other women surrounding her that I
was about to take the decision to make the novel the subject of my research. However, a
voice inside me was shouting the word “Arab,” so I started wondering about the
existence of any American author with Arab origins writing about their experience. So I
immediately started a quick search into this possibility, and there she was: Diana AbuJaber and her novel Arabian Jazz (1993). And this was the start of my long journey with
Arab American literature.
Within the perspective of contemporary Arab American literature, the choice of
Abu-Jaber’s first novel Arabian Jazz (1993) as one of the objects of my study seemed
almost obvious, since it was received and hailed as a “landmark work in the Arab
American tradition, not unlike Momaday’s House Made of Dawn in that of Native
America” (Salaita 2001: 424). It was the first Arab American novel to reach a large
mainstream American readership, and become, in a way I will explore later, a
cornerstone of a heated debate about the construction and critical portrayal of a
contemporary Arab American identity. Its winning of the Oregon Book Award and the
fact that it was shortlisted for the Pen/Hemingway Award in 1994 was considered a
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breakthrough in the latent and obscured tradition of Arab writing in America, at a
moment when public discourse about the Middle East and American policy in the area
had initiated the course of maximum visibility we are witnessing at the present moment.
Abu-Jaber herself seems to embody in her biographical circumstances the
hyphenated experience which marks ethnic narratives in the Unites States. Born of a
mixed heritage, she makes hybridity the center of Arabian Jazz’s narrative discourse.
Many of her basic motives can be traced back, however discontinuously, to her double
heritage. She was born in 1959 to a Jordanian immigrant father – himself of a mixed
heritage, with a Bedouin Jordanian father and a Palestinian mother – and an American
mother from Irish-German stock.
Abu-Jaber’s childhood was spent in a typical American middle-class
environment, since the family had settled in the small town of Euclid, outside of
Syracuse, New York. When she was seven, her family, her parents and two younger
sisters, moved to Amman, Jordan, where they “spent some time living among
courtyards and trellised jasmine and extended family” (Abu-Jaber 2004: 122), giving
her an experience of dis-location or displacement. Two years later, they returned to
America to settle down again in Syracuse. Abu-Jaber reveals the transmission through
paternal authority of the experience of duality, as she writes the following:
My father could not make up his mind about which country we should
live in. In America, he constantly reminded us that we were good Arab
girls; we weren’t allowed to go out to parties or school dances. But then
he encouraged us to study single-mindedly, to compete as intensely as
any boy, and to always make our own way in the world. (122)
Following her father’s will, Abu-Jaber received her undergraduate degree from the State
University of New York-Oswego, as one of her uncles taught there so he could keep an
eye on her while she lived in a dormitory. The initial experience of freedom that
university provides was to be constantly tutored and monitored so as to preserve a set of
81
paternal homeland values. She earned her PhD in English and Creative Writing from the
University of Binghamton. She taught English and creative writing at the University of
Michigan, the University of Oregon and the University of Miami. She has been teaching
at Portland University since 1996 and divides her time between Portland and Miami.
Abu-Jaber is almost a born writer as she started writing when she was at school.
The indebtedness to the paternal figure seems to be at work even here, at the onset of
her writing career. In her own words, it seems that the eastern tradition of orality as
exemplified in her father’s storytelling when she was a child and adolescent fostered her
hunger for her own storytelling. When she was a postgraduate student at SUNYBinghamton, she started writing her first published short stories while finding her own
voice. There she worked with the American novelist and literary critic John Gardner,
who encouraged her to find her themes and voice within her double heritage.
In one of her articles published online, Diana Abu-Jaber talks about the impact
of Maxine Hong Kingston’s The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of Girlhood Among Ghosts
(1976) on her when she first read it while she was still at high school. She recalls her
fascination at how “the story traces the links of what it’s like for those of us who live
between identities.” Abu-Jaber writes that she “was a stranger everywhere, neither fully
Arab nor fully American. Hong Kingston understood this strangeness.” While reading
the novel, Abu-Jaber “felt an electrifying jolt of recognition. This was the desire of a
young girl for a voice, a sense of her own power.” She adds that this novel was her
“first inkling that there were many kinds of stories in the house of literature,” 15 as
thanks to Hong Kingston she learnt about negotiating identities and hyphenated
characters like herself.
15
Abu-Jaber, Diana. “Seizing Power from The Woman Warrior. NPR (June 2007)
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=11163242
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Abu-Jaber’s finding of her own hybrid voice in the autobiographical experience
of a mixed Arab American background determines the basic thematic concern of her
first two novels Arabian Jazz (1993) and Crescent (2003), and her memoir entitled The
Language of Baklava (2005), showing a progressive problematization of the issues she
addresses. Here I intend to concentrate on these two novels, as Abu-Jaber’s later works
do not embrace an Arab American perspective. In fact, she has gone mainstream with
her last two novels, Origin (2007) and Birds of Paradise (2011). However, I think that
despite this move towards other perspectives, she remains one of the prominent Arab
American voices whose work has notably contributed to the Arab American narrative.
Laila Halaby was the second writer I discovered in the Arab American literary
tradition. I remember the day I received the delivery of my online order of her novel
West of the Jordan (2003). When I opened the box, I was startled by the cover photo
which was like a reflection of myself years ago. The huge kohl made-up eyes of the girl
on the cover were disturbingly similar to mine, which increased my expectations about
the book. In an interview published in The Tucson Weekly, Halaby mentions that the girl
on the cover is “a Palestinian who lives in Brooklyn whose image was part of an article
in a Saudi publication about Arabs in the States.” She adds, “I don't know her
personally, but she conveys something akin to what my characters are going through.
It's the duality, the conflict of her very Arab-looking countenance, but she's wearing a
T-shirt, an American shirt.”16
I admired the writer’s poetic prose and the freshness of the characters and their
stories which reflect Halaby’s own experience. Born in Beirut to a Palestinian Jordanian
father and an American mother, Halaby moved to the Unites States in the late 1960’s
when she was still a baby. While her father remained in the old country, she was
16
Schuman, Joan. “Pick.” The Tucson Weekly. (22 May 2003)
http://www.tucsonweekly.com/tucson/pick/Content?oid=1072358
83
brought up by her mother in Tucson, Arizona. This did not prevent her from being
immersed in both cultures, as she explains in an online interview published in the
Magazine of Washington University in Saint Louis: “From the time I was in high school
many of my friends were Arab… it was always a large part of my life. It was as though
I were two different people.”17
About twenty-five years later, she returned to Jordan where she spent a year
studying folklore on a Fulbright scholarship. During her stay, she had the opportunity to
get access to Palestinian refugee camps, where she worked in schools. Her direct
contact with Palestinian children allowed her to witness their life in the camps and also
collect their tales. In this same interview, she indicates her interest in giving voice to
these kids as “Palestinian children in refugee camps are not voices you hear often,”
which is why “I really want to introduce those voices to American children.” This trip,
in fact, provided Halaby with an important source of inspiration for her debut novel
West of the Jordan (2003), which won the prestigious PEN Beyond Margins Award.
Back in the United States, she earned two master’s degrees, one in Arabic
languages and literatures at the University of California, and the other in counseling at
Loyola Marymount University. She is fluent in Arabic, Italian and Spanish. In 2013, she
started teaching a creative writing class to veterans in the polytrauma unit at Southern
Arizona VA Healthcare System. She combines her writing with her work as a counselor
coaching smokers from different cultural backgrounds who are trying to quit tobacco.
Halaby explains that counseling is suitable for her, as she listens to people’s stories all
day, which is actually compatible with her writing. Identity enjoys a privileged position
in her work as it reflects her own experience of navigating between two cultures.
Halaby, indeed, describes herself in her Twitter account biography as a “non17
Rogers, Betsy. “Storyteller Shares Tales of Duality.” The Washington University in Saint Louis
Magazine. (Summer 2005).
http://magazine-archives.wustl.edu/summer05/AlumniProfiles.htm
84
hyphenated” author, because she considers herself both Arab and American. Living a
cultural duality herself helps her mine this in-betweenness in her writings, whether in
the novels West of the Jordan (2003) and Once in a Promised Land (2008), or the
poetry collection My Name on his Tongue (2012).
I think that Diana Abu-Jaber and Laila Halaby are prominent representatives of a
generation of Arab American writers who have been trying hard to create and develop a
space of their own within ethnic literatures in the United States. Their work undercuts
the mainstream preconceived notions of what constitutes Arab American subjectivity,
thus creating their own versions of individual and collective Arab American identities.
The wide range of characters and stories with varied backgrounds they display, offers a
perfect stage for the negotiation of the Third Space in the Arab American context. My
analysis of their novels intends to show how they deconstruct essentialized frameworks
of identity through the construction of an antiessentialist Arab American subjectivity
rooted in the Arab American experience. This unstable subjectivity is definitely
complex and multilayered, which makes the exploration of such works an exquisite
critical exercise.
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CHAPTER 3
87
88
CHAPTER 3
THE CONSTRUCTION OF FEMALE ARAB AMERICAN IDENTITIES AND
THE NARRATIVES OF DISPLACEMENT IN ARABIAN JAZZ BY DIANA
ABU-JABER AND WEST OF THE JORDAN BY LAILA HALABY
This chapter will be dedicated to the study of the novels Arabian Jazz and West
of the Jordan that I consider to be narratives of displacement. My aim is to observe the
identification options that both writers Diana Abu-Jaber and Laila Halaby offer to their
Arab American female characters. Hence, I will explore the multilayered Arab
American female identities and the negotiation processes experienced by the novels'
characters.
3.1 Arabian Jazz
3.1.1 Fragile and displaced female Arab American identities in the making:
The poor white community entourage and the absence of the mother figure
From its very title, Arabian Jazz (1993) – Jazz being the quintessential American
popular expression of a marginal culture achieving mainstream “high culture”
appropriation – the novel posits itself in a double tradition of hyphenation and hybridity
in its portrayal of the struggle of a Jordanian American family to find its place in the
American setting of upstate New York. A small poor white community with its
corresponding gallery of characters, all of them at odds with the central American
discourse of progress and happiness, provides a frame into which Abu-Jaber settles her
portrait of fragile and displaced female Arab American identities in the making.
89
Abu-Jaber situates her narrative in a poor white neighborhood, on the one hand,
to focus on the way this small white community perceives values and differences; and
on the other, to suggest the significance of growing up and attaining one’s identity in
this particular framework, taking into account that identity is constructed out of a dual
process of identification with, and resistance to, some given models. The town of Euclid
offers a setting where Abu-Jaber tries to open the debate on the negotiation of an Arab
American identity as her characters try to find their own Third Space in this framework.
Euclid becomes the home of a transplanted Jordanian American family, the Ramouds,
consisting of Matussem, the Jordanian father, and his two daughters Jemorah (Jem) and
Melvina (Melvie): “Euclid, New York, was virtually the same as it had been one
hundred years ago when two roads intersected and that point was named” (Abu-Jaber
1993: 88).
Euclid is introduced as an isolated piece of land cut off from the world. This
forgotten town, suffering stagnation and paralysis, is inhabited by a poor and immobile
community.
Without the mall, Euclid remained an amoeba of a town… It took in dirt
farmers, onion farmers, and junk dealers and produced poorly clothed
and poorly fed children who’d wait for driver’s licenses then leave in
rotting-out Chevies, going as far as a case of Black Label would take
them. Usually just far enough for them to come back for good. (90)
Abu-Jaber takes the reader for a ride in Jem’s school bus as she describes the itinerary
followed by the bus, and the different stops made across the countryside to pick up this
poor community’s children. In one of these stops, for instance,
[a] band of seven boys, ranging from around ten to eighteen, emerged
from the defunct bus, crossed the lot, and climbed onto the school bus.
Jem noticed a clothesline loaded with diapers. The Broom kids looked
savage. Their faces were sharp and blank, branded with grime. Jem felt
heat rising from their hands, their mouths, the way they ran, banding
down to sit in the bus. (91-92)
90
The writer is revealing the ugly image of poverty personified by these children, which
indicates her concern about this forgotten community as well as her critique of some
social attitudes among this particular group. Moreover, she provides us with a glimpse
of the fate of those children on the bus who had made Jem’s life impossible in her
school days: “As Jem moved toward graduation and college, her tormentors scattered.
The kids on the bus dropped out or got pregnant, went to juvenile homes, foster homes,
penitentiaries, turned up poverty-stricken, welfare-broken, sick, crazy, or drunk… those
children that nobody wanted” (93-4).
This marginalized community with closed horizons contains working-class
white characters who are portrayed as poor, semi-literate, ignorant, provincial, violent
and hostile to foreigners. Abu-Jaber portrays some aspects of rural America where
many families cannot properly raise their children, who are left to live in the wilderness
with no hope of a better future. This atmosphere reminds the reader of an old tradition
of American literature: the small countryside sub-genre going back to the early
twentieth century with American writers like William Faulkner or Sherwood Anderson,
for instance, whose fiction makes a dark psychological exposé of sharecroppers and
poor white communities who dominated the lower ranks of the social structures of their
fictional southern towns. Works like Go Down Moses (1942) and The Sound and the
Fury (1929) chart the decay of the traditional South through the portrayal of the
disturbed psyches and the dysfunctional relations between the members of some chaotic
and disintegrating clans.
Arabian Jazz (2003) displays the frustrated hopes of the locals trapped within
the labyrinth of Euclid: “‘No one ever escapes this place,’ Peachy Otts told Jem when
they were children. ‘You want to think twice about moving here. It’s like that show –
The Twilight Zone?’” (90). Peachy was Jemorah’s schoolmate who belongs to one of
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the Ramouds’ neighboring families. The Otts family leads a marginalized lifestyle
devoid of any kind of ambition or hope. This family’s life seems to be frozen in time, as
there is no sign of progress or change. Peachy’s sisters Glady and Dolores, for instance,
“looked haggard as old warriors, harrowed by poverty and pregnancy” (94-95). Dolores
had her first child at the age of twelve. Now that she is thirty, she has at least five kids:
She’d turned herself over so many times to that damn man, that damn
man being many men, forty, maybe fifty, or even a hundred. Who was
counting? It didn’t matter, they were all the same, parading around with
their dicks like trophies, and nearly every one put a baby in her. (101-02)
This aspect of Dolores’s character slightly recalls Caddy Compson from
William Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury (1929), the female character distinguished
by her potent sexual presence, and who turns to unorthodox behavior in an attempt to
assert her own independence and individuality. While Dolores’s behavior may be
related to poverty and marginality, Caddy uses her sexuality as an action to reject the
false pride of her disintegrating family. She confides to her brother Quentin that she
does not feel any pleasure or satisfaction from her sexual relations. On the other hand,
she comes to associate sexual encounters with death: “When they touched me I died”
(Faulkner 1954: 185).
The idea of death seems to bring both characters together again as their situation
suggests that sexual desire is a corrupting or even destructive force. More importantly
perhaps, in both cases pregnancy implies self-destruction and even death. Fascinated by
Dalton Ames, Caddy starts a relationship with him and quickly becomes pregnant.
While Caddy’s pregnancy is a death knell to her family, Dolores’s attempt to have an
abortion when she is not pregnant causes her own death. Dolores dies when she is still
wondering “when her life would begin: she hadn’t seen any signs of it yet” (Abu-Jaber
1993: 175). In fact, she spends her days watching television and shouting at her
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uncertain number of kids, which leads her to give voice to her despair through the
reflection: “Live by garbage, die by garbage” (175).
This reflection proves to be true as it best describes the precarious conditions in
which Dolores and her family live, to the point that her only worry on her deathbed is,
curiously, the future of her younger sister Peachy. She expresses her concern about her
sister by wishing her to go to college and, therefore, have a better fate than hers. That
way, she would at least be able to achieve the dream of leaving Euclid and getting into
the stream of the American dream that seems to have bypassed this community. The
writer uses this group in order to express her concern about some poor rural areas in
America which produce ill-fed, unhealthy, badly-dressed and dirty kids whose fate is
harsh and glim. In addition to that, she criticizes some social attitudes exemplified in
these characters, hence her concern about Dolores and her peers whose lives are reduced
to getting pregnant in such poverty-stricken areas. Abu-Jaber draws attention to the
conditions lived in by these women who waste their lives being with men who make
them pregnant and then just leave. This casualness about producing babies without
taking into account whether they can afford to bring them up properly or not is further
displayed when Gil, in love with Jem, tries to convince her to marry him assuring her
that “we’ll make babies and live in your father’s attic” (127).
In this way, Abu-Jaber creates a fully American setting which, in principle,
could act as the central discourse towards which or against which Arab American
identity is to be tested. This setting acts as a force of marginalization within the
standards of American values – in this context the ordeal of the two young female
characters eschews an easy disjunction of the either–or Arab/American – to become a
form of multi and problematic identification. This small community with restricted
opportunities due, fundamentally, to poverty and lack of expectations, engenders a very
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characteristic isolation which leads its members to retreat into their own values. It acts
as an alienating frame which duplicates the schizophrenic identity of the young female
protagonists, problematizing a step further the difficulties of maladjustment and double
identity.
In addition to that, the family’s moving to Euclid is directly connected to the
mother’s death, after which Matussem decides to choose this town as a new home for
his family instead of Syracuse, where they have been living until then. This can be
considered another unsettling element because the loss of Nora, the mother, is linked to
the loss of what the girls until that moment have regarded as home. On the other hand,
the father’s decision comes down to his desire to settle down somewhere and
consequently to bring to an end the nomadic tradition of his Bedouin family.
And Euclid, lost to the rest of the world, was Matussem’s private land,
like the country his parents tried to leave as they made lives in Jordan, as
they let go of their children’s memories and let them grow up as
Jordanian. Matussem was only two when the family left Nazareth. Still
he knew there had been a Palestine for his parents; its sky formed a
ceiling in his sleep. He dreamed of the country that had been, that he was
always returning to in his mind.
After they’d moved to Euclid, he found there were ways to lose himself
in a place. Euclid, my displaced past, he thought when he walked the
gravel roads, past shacks and barking dogs. When he first saw Euclid he
remembered it, every silver leaf and broken-backed creek. Nora was his
history; now only the land was left. (260)
Euclid is portrayed as Matussem’s new home, and particularly, as his private Palestine
that his parents once left behind for Jordan and never had the possibility to go back to.
This extract reflects the writer’s exploration of the dispossession experience when she
compares Mattussem’s dream of making a home in the United States with his parents’
dream of making home in Jordan. For him, Palestine as a country and a land is lost for
good, but its memories, history and significance remain in his heart and mind, which is
why he chooses Euclid to become his own land. Therefore, this town is the land left for
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him after Nora’s death. Unlike Palestine, in this case Euclid as a land is still here but its
history—which is Nora—is lost.
Accordingly, the patterns of psychic identification of Matussem’s daughters are
problematized not only by the question of the double cultural identity but also by the
early experience of loss of the mother figure and the consequent displacement of the
imaginary, as well. While at the same time, the force of the father figure, with its
consequent psychic impact in the forging of an identity, works within a cultural
atmosphere and values – those of the small American community – which are totally
alien to him. This setting provides a hostile environment where Jem and Melvie have
experienced rejection since an early age.
The death of the girls’ Irish American mother Nora of typhus, while on a visit to
Jordan, has been a turning point in the relation of the Ramouds with Nora’s parents.
Once in the airport, they are received with the grandmother’s accusations to Matussem,
“‘you killed her. You. You killed her. You. You killed…’ His daughter’s hand in his
was iron hot.”
The grandparents’ reaction suggests that they see the girls as
accomplices in their mother’s death. It seems that,
[Matussem’s] in-laws never forgave him. Although they called the girls
on birthdays and holidays, they wouldn’t see them in person. “It hurts so
much,” his mother-in-law had said to Jem, “to see so much of our
daughter mixed up with the body of her murderer.” (85)
Like Matussem, the children know that one half of them is Arab, and the
grandparents identify that half as the murdering half. This irrational identification of
their Arab side as the murdering side ties in with their own sense of themselves as
Arabs in America. They have to put up with the grandparents’ accusation that, if Nora,
an Irish American, had not married an Arab, she would never have died of typhus
during that visit to Jordan.
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The grandparents’ rejection implies denial, which suggests dispossessing their
granddaughters of their American half. Consequently, Jemorah and Melvina are reduced
to the status of foreignness, together with their father. As foreigners, they become the
subject of hostility and hatred. In this respect, Julia Kristeva describes the experience of
hatred as “the way the foreigner often expresses his life.” She writes,
Constantly feeling the hatred of others, knowing no other environment
than that hatred… Like a child that hides, fearful and guilty, convinced
beforehand that it deserves its parents’ anger. In the world of dodges and
shams that make up his pseudo-relationships with pseudo-others, hatred
provides the foreigner with consistency. Against that wall, painful but
certain, and in that sense familiar, he knocks himself in order to assert, to
others and to himself, that he is here. (Kristeva 13)
The death of Nora, therefore, has engendered her parents’ resentment, and consequently
the Ramouds are doomed to face rejection as well as hatred within their own family
sphere.
Rejection and hatred seem to have helped shape the girls’ consciousness about
their difference since their childhood. Their physical aspect accentuates this difference,
as they “looked so alike, their skin the same pale shimmer of olive, the same glints of
blue in their hair” (Abu-Jaber 1993: 31). In one of the flashbacks to Jemorah’s
childhood, we learn that her Arab features have provoked the hostility of children in the
school bus. They
taunted Jem because of her strange name, her darker skin… She
remembered the sensation of their hands on her body as they teased her, a
rippling hatred running over her arms, legs, through her hair. They asked
her obscene questions, searched for her sickness, the chink that would let
them into her strangeness. She never let them. She learned how to close
her mind, how to disappear in her seat, how to blur the sound of searing
voices chanting her name. (92-93)
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Here, Jemorah experiences another episode of rejection, this time at the hands of her
schoolmates, as she undergoes a painful process which starts with a realization of her
difference:
One day someone tore out a handful of her hair; on another someone
pushed her down as she stood to leave; on another someone racked
scratches across her face and neck as she stood, her eyes full, the sound
of her name ringing in rounds of incantation. Waiting to leave, she could
see her name on the mailbox from a half mile away, four inches high in
bright ted against the black box: RAMOUD. Matussem had been so eager
to proclaim their arrival. There was no hiding or disguising it. She would
run off the bus, straight to her room, but the voices would follow and
circle her bed at night. (93)
Jemorah’s Arab half, which once led to her grandparents’ denial, seems also to impact
her first experience of socialization as a kid at school. The other kids’ mockery that
turns sometimes into harassment dominates Jem’s everyday life as a child to the point
that it haunts her nights.
This tormenting experience not only makes the girl open her eyes to her
difference from others but also helps her develop her own strategy of defense consisting
of just “disappearing.” Once she gets on the bus, she simultaneously crosses the door of
her own world where her tormentors’ voices are just reduced to a background noise.
Moreover, she creates a new world of her own where she forbids access to these kids,
which helps her become strong enough to ignore their comments and mockery. In this
context, Kristeva states that: “the foreigner feels strengthened by the distance that
detaches him from the others as it does from himself and gives him the lofty sense not
so much of holding the truth but of making it and himself relative” (7). Therefore, Jem
tries to find comfort in this distance separating her from the kids on the bus, and hence
she increases the barrier created by the latter. The girl’s daily trip to and from school
becomes a painful journey to alienation, self-effacement and inconspicuousness. In this
way, Jem learns how to become invisible.
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From my point of view, Abu-Jaber intends to use Jem’s situation here in order to
make a reference to the invisibility of the Arab American community as a whole. In this
context, Joanna Kadi considers that Arab Americans are “the Most Invisible of the
Invisibles” (xix). She explains that she has coined this phrase to describe the community
because “it is not only white people who refuse to see us, it is other people of color –
Latinos, Africans, Asians, Natives – who do not acknowledge our existence” (xx). Thus,
Kadi evokes the Arab Americans’ struggle to be recognized as a minority group within
America’s multiethnic fabric after decades of marginalization and indifference. In this
way, Arabian Jazz (1993) is in harmony with other Arab American writers’ efforts to
illustrate their community’s experience in the United States, and most importantly,
reinforce the Arab American discourse within its American multicultural context. Hence
the omnipresence of the color line in the novel.
Abu-Jaber’s deliberate crossing of color boundaries affects the already complex
identity plot, and consequently, the Arab American identities in the making. In fact, one
of the novel’s most revealing scenes is s Jem’s confrontation with Portia, her supervisor
at the hospital. Jemorah’s numerous attempts to quit her unrewarding office job have
repeatedly faced Portia’s intimidation, until the day she decides to leave for good. The
supervisor calls her into her office, and there she reveals her intention to keep her under
her command. She starts her sermon talking about Jem’s mother,
Your mother used to be such a good girl. She was so beautifully white,
pale as a flower. And then, I don’t know. What happened? The silly girl
wanted attention. She met your father in her second year [of college] and
she just wanted attention… This man, he couldn’t speak a word of our
language, didn’t have a real job. And Nora was so – like a flower, a real
flower, I’m telling you. It seemed like three days after she met that man
they were getting married. A split second later she was pregnant. I know
for a fact her poor mother – your grandmother – had to ask for a picture
of the man for her parish priest to show around to prove he wasn’t a
Negro. Though he might as well have been, really, who could tell the
difference, the one lives about the same as the other. (Abu-Jaber 1993:
293-94)
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To Jem’s dismay, Portia is telling the story of Matussem and Nora according to her own
perception of things. Her distress is increased as Portia raises her voice more and more,
and consequently, “the hospital office transformed from a metaphor of totalitarian
control into a white mold that reflects the traditional American metanarrative of forced
assimilation” (Salaita 2001: 437). Portia continues talking about Nora:
She never did finish college after that, never got to be the woman she
could’ve been. A husband and a baby at twenty. Look at what I’ve done
with my life. You know, it’s not too late for you. Oh, sure, you’re tainted,
your skin that color. A damn shame. But I’ve noticed that in certain lights
it’s worse than in others. Your mother could have made such beautiful
children – they could have been so lovely, like she was, like a white rose.
Still it could definitely have been worse for you, what with his skin.
Now, if you were to change your name, make it Italian maybe, or even
Greek, that may help some. I’m telling you this for love of your mother.
I’ll feel forever I might have saved her when that Arab man took her and
you kids back to that horrible country of his over there. It’s a wonder any
of you survived that place, so evil, primitive, filled with disease! I
should’ve spoken up twenty years ago, but I didn’t. I thought, the Lord
will provide, blah, blah. She could always have the marriage annulled. I
thought I should butt out, let Nora make her own mistakes. Well, not
anymore, now I’m telling you, Jemorah Ramoud and all his kind aren’t
any better than Negroes, that’s why he hasn’t got any ambition and why
he’ll be stuck in that same job in the basement for the rest of his life.
They’d never promote him any higher. He only got where he is now on
my say-so, because I feel for you kids. And now you can go that way,
too, or you can come under my wing and let me educate you, really get
you somewhere. We’ll try putting some pink lipstick on you, maybe
lightening your hair, make you American. (Abu-Jaber: 1993, 294-95)
I am here quoting Portia’s full discourse because, in my opinion, it is highly relevant as
it reveals her extremely racist speech not only towards Arabs but towards African
Americans as well.
First, Portia dismisses Nora’s choice of partner as she refuses to accept any
possibility of a genuine love affair between a white woman and a Jordanian immigrant.
However, she considers that she just wanted some attention through her decision to do
something different and, hence, to marry an Arab man. Then, she contrasts Nora’s
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whiteness with Matussem’s supposed darkness. She describes the Irish American
Woman as “pale as a flower,” which makes reference to a concept dating back to the
history of slavery and segregation in the United States. This concerns the comparison of
white women with flowers, which are the symbol of innocence and purity, and whose
petals protect their virginity from barbaric black penetration. In fact, Portia associates
Matussem with blackness as she perceives no difference between Arabs and black
people; this refers to the fact that in America black is anything that is not “all-white.” In
this context, David Hollinger argues that “white and nonwhite are the two relevant
categories, and all distinctions between various ‘colored’ peoples are less significant
than the fact they are nonwhite” (24-25).
According to Portia, Nora’s sin is having broken the “one-drop rule” through
mixing her blood with that of a man of color. Portia’s attitude conveys the
internalization of a long tradition of white supremacy over African Americans and
people of color, hence her use of “Negro” as a prototypical term for nonwhites. Her
speech portrays the perception of difference according to American standards. She
limits Americanness to whiteness, while she considers Arabness a threat to American
whiteness. Thus, Abu-Jaber uses Portia, as a white Anglo-Saxon, in order to criticize,
once more, another aspect of America’s common cultural attitudes. In this way, she
employs a vocabulary that can be described as the language of oppression so as to
display this common racist discourse that she condemns.
On the other hand, Portia considers herself a savior with a civilizing mission,
that of saving this Arab American young woman. She warns Jem that she will always be
an inferior misfit unless she accepts her offer to help her get rid of her parental Arab
heritage that she considers savage, primitive and impure. As a representative of the
dominant culture, Portia believes that Jemorah’s skin color and name are definitely
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markers of inferiority. Hence, she reduces her to a state of inferiority, and later offers to
rescue her. The supervisor here is orchestrating a forced session of Americanization
aiming to mold Jemorah into an American creature, according to her own conception of
Americanness, of course. This is why she invites her to lighten her hair color, and
change her name and make it sound Italian or Greek, so as to make believe she belongs
to a more acceptable ethnic group. Mona Fayad challenges the generalized portrayal of
the Arab woman as “silent, passive, helpless, in need of rescue by the West. But there’s
also that other version of her, exotic and seductive, that follows me in the form of the
Belly Dancer” (170). Portia classifies Jemorah as representing the first version of the
Arab woman mentioned here by Fayad, one who needs help to be saved.
The idea of changing Jemorah’s name may come from Abu-Jaber’s own
experience. In an Interview with Robin E. Field, she mentions how a professor told her
once: “‘if you publish under Abu-Jaber, people are always going to think of you as the
ethnic writer. You should absolutely change it to an American name and just go for it.’
Obviously I didn’t” (213). While the writer criticizes the restrictiveness of some
imposed features and characteristics of being American as expressed by America’s
subjected citizens, she offers a flexible alternative of American identity in a continuous
process of negotiation, encompassing all the components of the American nation.
However, Portia is not the only character who uses the term “Negro” to refer to
Matussem. Hilma Otts, Peachy’s mother, for instance, calls the Arab American man the
“darky foreigner” from whom “she had to keep her own distance” (Abu-Jaber 1993:
89). His boss at the hospital refers to him as “the dirty sand nigger” (99). Even Fred, the
gas station owner whose poor white workers play jazz with Matussem, calls the latter
the “damn fool, foreign A-rab’ that lives next door” (113). Therefore, Abu-Jaber is
blurring the race borderline, as she tries to draw a common ground between Arab
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Americans and other minority groups, particularly African Americans in this case. The
identification is tackled by Salaita when he points that:
the commonalities among Arabs and other minorities are powerfully
represented here and serve to counter the commonplaces of tolerance in
the dominant culture. Abu-Jaber portrays this culture from the
perspective of its subjected citizens; in her analysis its underpinnings
contradict the descriptions offered by the popular media and by
“common sense” (2001: 438).
Now I want to consider another scene at the end of the book, where we can
perceive, again, white people’s prejudices against Arabs. The whole scene plays
successfully again at undermining – with Abu-Jaber’s fine use of irony—one of the leitmotifs of American literature and culture, “the place elsewhere,” the virgin space in the
land, forest and lake, where the laws of civilization are suspended. On Labor Day
weekend, Matussem takes his daughters, his sister Fatima and her husband Zaeed on an
outing, to an all-American picnic in nature, in a place called ironically “Fair Haven
Park.” The scene includes all the typical American components of popular culture. In
this park “the trees hung silky drops of leaves, where the air was sweet against the
frame of water” (361). Even the presence of the passers-by, to whom Matussem offers
food – shish kebab – has a topical American flavor: “Two young men with ponytails
and beards” redolent of the sixties beats “stopped and sat with them, talking and eating,
telling the Ramouds about where they’d hiked and how they’d been living on peanut
butter and jelly for the past five days” (360).
The topicality of the scene, of the paradise in nature, where the rules of culture
are suspended, and therefore could be an ideal setting for the development of that
double identity, is shattered by both parties, as if opposites could not coalesce in the
blending of the Arab Americanness, not even in the state of grace that this “Fair Haven
Park” provides. On the one hand, “Fatima held aloof, eyeing [the two young men’s]
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long hair, the dusty clothes. She’d told Jem several times that perfectly fine husbands
can come out of a good scrubbing, but something else troubled her, something deeper: a
sense of danger” (360). Fatima goes to the extent that “she refused to speak the whole
time the boys sat at their table. At one point, Melvie rapped her knuckles on the table
and said to her aunt, ‘Where are your manners? Make an effort!’” (360).
On the other hand, the two young men’s attitude changes drastically when they
learn about the Arab origins of the Ramouds. “After an hour or more of eating their
meat and bread, drinking their beer, of conversation, of songs from Matussem and
Zaeed,” one of the boys asks them before leaving: “So what are you all anyway? Italians? Wet-backs?” Matussem “smiled at them openly” and tells them proudly, “We
are Arab. From Jordan” (361). The boy’s reaction is shocking as he
made a strange little yelp. “A-rabs!” he said, his eyes now full of what
looked like a twist of amusement and disgust. He turned to the other boy
and said, “Arabs, Jesus fucking Christ. And we ate their food.” The other
boy grabbed his friend and tugged him away. As they left Matussem
heard them laughing. (361)
The Ramouds are appalled by the young men’s racist and humiliating attitude towards
them, so much so that “no one said much after the boys had gone. They packed up and
left soon after” (361). In fact, Abu-Jaber uses a set of received motifs from the
American tradition to undermine the ingenuous vision of America as a land of
immigrants.
As we have seen so far, the writer portrays attitudes of supremacy among white
Americans, not only middle-class but ironically lower classes too, who try to
compensate for their inferior economic status by exhibiting racial superiority to
“niggers” and “sand niggers.” Hence, in her focus on the duality of Arab American
identity, she criticizes American social behavior based on stereotypes and
essentializations. In this way, Homi Bhabha argues that “the identity between
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stereotypes which through repetition, also become different; the discriminatory
identities constructed across traditional cultural norms and classifications, the Simian
Black, the Lying Asiatic – all these are metonymies of presence” (1994: 90). The
repetition of these “discriminatory identities” may become a form of affirmation and
identification with them.
In fact, this process leads to the creation of identities of resistance in order to
overcome discrimination and give it a totally opposite effect. Therefore, the result of
this process is a kind of affirmation of the presence of, and pride in, this identity, and in
this case the Arab American identity in the making. Abu-Jaber focuses on how her Arab
American characters are constantly treated as Negroes, sand niggers, inferior, savage,
among other things, in order to counter-claim this discourse produced by the dominant
culture, and offer instead an image of a multilayered and negotiated Arab American
identity. As an example of this, she gives Matussem the possibility to overcome some
of the racism he is suffering in his work and social entourage by inviting the gas station
workers to form a jazz band with him. He chooses jazz to extend communicative lines
to working-class Anglo-Americans in his adopted home.
This alienating atmosphere which represents a site of struggle and negotiation
for these Arab American characters makes it hard for them to find their way, especially
after the loss of the intermediary who might have built bridges between them and
America: Nora. Matussem’s and his daughters’ lives are forever changed by the death of
Nora, the wife and mother. Jem seems stuck and undecided as she is unable to think
beyond her current situation, working in a meaningless job that she hates, and struggling
with what it means to be an Arab American. Her sister Melvie, on the contrary, is
shocked into action by witnessing her mother’s death, and consequently, she decides to
become a nurse as a way to fight death. Even their father seems lost as Nora left him
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with a shattered dream of the family he wanted to have in America. He becomes keen
on drumming as a way to constantly connect with his dead wife and perform the rhythm
of his love to her. The characters’ lives, therefore, are shaped by Nora’s omnipresent
memory.
The trauma of the mother’s loss is deeply connected to the girls’ consciousness
about themselves not only as individuals, but as Arab Americans as well. The absence
of a caring mother prevents them from having a path which guides them into America, a
country where they are considered as the “Other.” In this sense, Susan Peck MacDonald
points out that many women novelists of the nineteenth century created young heroines
who “[did] not have strong supportive mothers” (59), such as Jane Eyre and Catherine
Earnshaw. She states that
The absence of mothers [from women’s fiction]. . . seems. . . to derive
not from the impotence or unimportance of mothers, but from the almost
excessive power of motherhood; the good supportive mother is
potentially so powerful a figure as to prevent her daughter’s trials from
occurring, to shield her from the process of maturation, and thus to
disrupt the focus and equilibrium of the novel (58).
Abu-Jaber, then, adheres to the absent mother tradition as she deliberately invites her
female protagonists to muddle through without their mother’s help until they sort out
their issues of identity one their own.
Thus, the writer intends to let Jem and Melvie have their own struggle during
this journey and allow them in this way to create their own stories. In her interview with
Robin E. Field, Abu-Jaber explains this point, referring to it as “metaphorically killing
the parents” (216). She adds that “you’ve got to put them way away from you and say ‘I
have to have an imaginative space in which to recreate myself.’” This is exactly what
she is doing with her protagonists, and that she describes as an obsession of hers to
observe the characters’ development in these specific circumstances. “How did they do
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it? How do you live as a kind of metaphorical orphan in America? And what does that
mean?” (217). On the other hand, the mother’s absence is so powerful, and her memory
so strongly present that it has strongly marked the girls in different ways that I will
explore separately in later sections of this chapter.
In the middle of all this, we find the domineering character of Aunt Fatima,
Matussem’s sister, who tries to play the role of adviser for her nieces, and hence fill the
space left by the missing mother. Fatima can be described as the ambassador of the Old
Country in America whom Abu-Jaber makes use of in order to test the validity of many
of the teachings and principles the aunt intends to transmit to her American nieces.
3.1.2 De-mythologizing the Old Country and the Burden of Representation
In her article entitled “‘Imaginary Homelands’ – Lebanese American Prose,”
Evelyn Shakir explains how many early Arab American writers tried to “recreate” the
homeland left behind, whether by them or by their ancestors. The Arab homeland was
referred to as the “Mysterious East” that Gibran Kahlil Gibran, for instance, depicted as
“the land of mystics and prophets.” Early Arab immigrants’ claim that the Holy Land
was their country of origin was also reflected in the autobiographies of the epoch, such
as the writings of Abraham Rihbany, who focuses on his Christian identity and links his
origins to Jesus Christ’s place of birth. When it comes to second-generation Arab
American writers, Shakir points out “the shift in rhetoric and purpose.” She states that
for writers like Vance Bourjaily and Eugene Paul Nassar, the Old Country “may remain
a blessed land but one with religious reference mostly washed away. Instead it has
become a secular icon of sanity and bedrock morality and, as such, an implicit rebuke of
American society.” Then Shakir moves to contemporary Arab American writers and
states that “prompted by feminist impulse or by the horror of war or simply by the
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revisionist spirit of the age, these writers have set about de-mythologizing the
homeland.”18
In this same context, interviewed by Elham Gheytanchi for The Iranian online
newspaper, the editor of Al Jadid, Elie Chalala, mentions the growing volume of Arab
American literature which
tends to be very secular and critical of patriarchal norms. The early phase
of these writings tended to be nostalgic. But I would say that most ArabAmerican writers have transcended the nostalgic phase. There are a
variety of genres present in their writings; their work is sophisticated and
multi-layered.19
Arabian Jazz (1993) put an end to nostalgia and opened the door for the critique of the
Arab homeland and its idealized culture. From this point of view, Tanyss Ludescher
argues that this novel
produced a flurry of controversy because it broke an unwritten rule in the
Arab American community that members should not criticize Arabs and
Arab Americans in public. In her imaginative and comic novel, AbuJaber lampoons American society, attacking, in particular, anti-Arab
bigots, as well as Arab society. (104)
While I dedicated the previous section to display Abu-Jaber’s dissection of American
society and her critique of certain American cultural behaviors, I intend, in this part, to
shed light on the writer’s efforts to undo the romanticized image of the Old Country.
Aunt Fatima is undoubtedly the champion of her homeland’s conservative
values that she tries to sustain in America. She emerges as a loud, sentimental,
melodramatic and amusing matchmaker who is obsessed with the idea of finding Arab
husbands for her nieces. Fatima’s character, however, is much more complex than that,
as Abu-Jaber makes use of her to invoke the memory of female experience of the past in
18
Shakir, Evelyn. “‘Imaginary Homelands’ – Lebanese American Prose.” Al Jadid 9.42 – 3 (2003).
http://www.aljadid.com/content/imaginary-homelands-lebanese-american-prose
19
Gheytanchi, Elham. “More than That.” The Iranian. December 2002.
<http://iranian.com/Opinion/2002/December/Chalala/index.html>
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the country of origin. Much of Matussem’s sister’s life has been shaped by trauma and
loss. While she moved from Jordan to America in the early sixties, “a year after [her
brother] did, in order to keep an eye on him” (Abu-Jaber 1993: 3), her journey was
inspired by her traumatic experiences of poverty, burials and imprisonment back home.
The dark part of it is definitely her participation in the burial alive of four infant sisters.
When I was writing my Master thesis, I hesitated whether to tackle this
important point, until I made up my mind to avoid even mentioning it. I recurred to
what I may call self-censorship in order to avoid the uncovering of such a delicate
theme because I thought that this pre-Islamic custom had disappeared for ever. In fact,
the burying of female infants alive was fairly widespread in the Arabian Peninsula in
“Jahiliyya,” or the period known as the era of ignorance previous to the appearance of
Islam. In a society dominated by inter-tribal wars at that time, many fathers preferred to
bury their new-born baby girls alive than for them to be captured by rival tribes which
was considered a humiliation and disgrace for the girl’s family and tribe. However, this
custom came to an end with Islam, which considered the killing of female infants a
serious murder. For instance, this point is mentioned in the eighty first chapter or
“surah” of the Holy Quran entitled Al Takwir, or the Overthrowing, which tells about
the signs of the coming of the Judgment Day. The verses 8 and 9 include a clear
condemnation of female infanticide, “when the female (infant) buried alive, is
questioned (8) for what crime she was killed (9).”20 Accordingly, the murderers of these
baby girls will be judged that day for their crimes.
Now, returning to Fatima’s case, she participates in the burial of her infant
sisters with her parents when she is very young, out of need and poverty. She explains
20
The Holy Quran, translated into English by Dr. Muhammad Taqi-ud-Din Al-Hilali and Dr. Muhammad
Muhsin Khan and published by the King Fahd Printing Complex, Madinah, Saudi Arabia in 1998.
108
that this happened after her family was driven off their land by the Israelis, and
consequently, lost everything. She talks about this traumatic experience to her nieces:
When we were homeless and dying without food, what of the four
starving babies I had to bury still alive … Babies I buried with my
mother watching this so this rest could live, so my baby brother can eat,
so he can move away and never know about it… [P]raise Allah he was
born so fortunate! Born a man, not to know the truth. (334)
Hence, the dispossessed family has to sacrifice some of its young female members in
order to save the other children especially Matussem, who is the only son in a family of
many daughters. While Fatima is trying to give voice to the trauma that has been
haunting her during her whole life, and through her attempt to acknowledge it as a way
to transcend it, she does not miss the opportunity to convey messages related to her
homeland’s patriarchal social order. This has allowed Matussem, the only boy, to be
spared the hardships endured by his sisters. Abu-Jaber takes the reader back to
Matussem’s childhood memories when
his mother had cradled his head between her breasts, even when he
became gangly, arms and legs spilling from her lap. She had stroked his
head, called him my eyes, even as she lifted her voice, a shard of anger at
his sisters, saying, “Move faster! Awkward, donkey, beanstalk! Lower
your face, rude girl!” (187)
Then, while Matussem receives his mother’s affection and love, his sisters receive
insults and scolding. His images of home, therefore, carry this sexist differentiation in
the way the family treats its children. These memories of Jordan bring back to him the
image of his “so many lonely sisters” and “the social restrictions that kept them home”
(233). In fact, “his parents had married several of his sisters to men they had never seen
before in their lives” (237). Matussem ends up understanding out of his own grown-up
experience that it is “a bitter thing to be a woman” (187) back home.
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Fatima is aware of this reality but she accepts and defends it instead of rejecting
it and trying to change it. She is the voice of the past working as a vehicle that transmits
cultural values that oppress women. In this respect, she “had a speech that she often
made to her nieces” when she explains how
it’s terrible to be a woman in this world. This is first thing to know when
the doctor looks at baby’s thing and says “it’s a girl.” But I’m telling you,
there are ways of getting around it. It helps to have a good bust, but don’t
worry… There are things you don’t know yet that I know perfect, and
first and last is that you must have husband to survive on the planet of
earth. (116-17)
Therefore, Fatima is definitely “true to the ways of her mother and mothers before her”
(41), as she perceives the female in relation to the man. Her value depends on the degree
of importance she acquires in a man’s life. These are the ways and the traditional ideals
she tries to perpetuate and bring to America through her nieces. In this context, Salwa
Essayah Chérif argues that, “with her memory of the past, she serves as the instrument
of a gendered return to their ethnic roots” (216). Thus, the creation of the character of
the aunt conveys Abu-Jaber’s critique of “the old tradition of female perpetuation of
female oppression” (Chérif 2003: 213).
Becoming the maternal figure for Jem and Melvie after their mother’s death,
Fatima struggles to reproduce the oppressive models of her idealized past in America.
That’s why she always expresses her concern that her nieces, having reached the ages of
twenty-nine and twenty-two respectively, are still unengaged. She believes it her duty to
lead her nieces to “marry someone’s son and preserve the family’s name and honor”
(Abu-Jaber 1993: 10). In this way, marrying off her nieces to Arab men would
guarantee, according to her, the protection of the girls from “foreign” influence and the
continuity of the homeland’s reconstructed ways. Thus, marriage becomes here the
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symbol of a cage restricting women’s freedom and orienting them towards the traditions
they are invited to continue and preserve.
Without doubt, Fatima is doing her best to intervene in her nieces’ construction
of their Arab American female identity and consequently keep them under her sphere of
control. The aunt does not miss any opportunity to express her rejection of mixing with
Americans. For instance, when one of her nephews marries an American woman, she
“attended the wedding dressed in black and gave them a card written in Arabic, ‘Samir,
this would kill your sainted mother, bless her sacred name, if she were still alive’” (4344). The wedding, in this case, becomes a funeral symbolized by the color of Fatima’s
outfits. She believes that as a consequence of this union, Samir will be cut off from his
old ways and ties which an Arab wife could properly preserve. The black color, then,
refers to the mourning for the loss of Samir as a member of the community as well as
the breaking of the female chain perpetuating the homeland’s patriarchal social order.
In my opinion, Fatima’s obsession with the marriage issue shapes her
relationship with her resisting nieces whom she tries to instill from an early age that the
family’s honor depends on them. This idea is shared by the girls’ other aunts, as well:
It seemed to Jem that virtually from the hour of her mother’s passing, her
aunts had converged around her with warnings about men. They told her:
stay with your father, he needs you now; ignore boys, they’re stupid and
dangerous; you don’t know what they can do to you, what they wanto to
do. Each summer, visiting Auntie Nabila or Lutfea or Nejla would take
Jem’s face between her hands and examine Jem’s lips to see if she’d been
kissed. “Not yet,” they’d whisper, crossing themselves. “Al humad’illah,
thanks be to God. She’s a good girl!” (9-10)
Here Abu-Jaber questions a main issue related to Arab culture, concerning the
commonly widespread image of the woman as the standard-bearer of the family’s
honor, which is closely associated to female sexuality. In this case, the writer exposes
how female virginity is considered to be symbol and guarantee of honor, hence the
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restrictions imposed on women to contain and control their sexuality. Accordingly, it
seems that the only way to maintain a family’s honor is through finding a suitable Arab
husband for a virgin daughter according to the conventions of their Arab background. In
this way, the daughter moves from her family’s control sphere to that of her husband’s.
From my point of view, these traditional values are intended to extend the
family’s oppressive control over the individual. In this respect, the Moroccan
sociologist and feminist Fatima Mernissi argues that:
Individualism, the person’s claim to have legitimate interests, views and
opinions different from those of the group, is an alien concept in and fatal
to heavily collectivist Islam. Islam, like any theocracy, is group-oriented,
and individual wishes are put down as impious, whimsical, egotistical
passions. I would suggest, however, that the woman identified in the
Muslim order as the embodiment of uncontrolled desire and
undisciplined passions, is precisely the symbol of heavily suppressed
individualistic trends. (1996: 110)21
While Mernissi here specifically speaks about women in Muslim societies, I would like
to point out that her argument concerns Arab societies in general. It is true that Islam is
not the religion of all Arabs, but it remains the predominant faith in the Arab world
where it gives shape to social and gender structures. Taking into account my intention to
avoid any essentialization concerning a single Arab social pattern, there are still many
unifying features which highlight the blending of religion and traditions in this part of
the world depending, of course, on the specific characteristics of each country. Hence,
this complex fusion of religion and traditions continues to provide a basis for social
order and definitely gender relations in these countries. In this sense, the lives of many
Muslim and / or Arab people are still affected by the duality of religion and traditions
which provides for a patriarchal system tending to favor gender discrimination at the
expense of women.
21
Mernissi, Fatima. Women’s Rebellion & Islamic Memory. London and New Jersey: Zed Books, 1996.
112
Aunt Fatima, then, is the vehicle of this ethnic memory that she struggles to
perpetuate through her nieces in America. Her teachings conveying her homeland’s
principle of containing women’s sexuality explain her obsession with the idea of
marrying off Jemorah and Melvina. In this context, the Iraqi writer Alia Mamdouh
reveals how “the women of the family insisted: ‘be gentle, soft, adorn yourself, fatten
up and in the end you will get married and have children’” (1998:66)22. Here again,
getting married and making babies seems to be women’s natural destiny as they cannot
be conceived in any other role. Fatima, therefore, makes of the idea of marriage a
priority and an objective. In her book of lists, she has a part entitled “What I CAN’T
STAND about my life,” where she writes as number one the following, “1. My America
nieces (Jemorah and Melvina) who are going to send me to mental hospital with so
much worries about who are they ever going to marry” (Abu-Jaber 1993: 110).
The culmination of Fatima’s efforts in the search for Arab husbands is portrayed
during the welcoming party organized by the Syrian Orthodox Church in honor of a
visiting Jordanian archbishop. In fact, the party has turned into an exhibition of
matchmaking which is actually a common habit within the Arab American community
whether among Christian or Muslim members. In this context, Yvonne Yazbeck
Haddad asserts that “special efforts are made to get the young people to meet each other
so that they will socialize and marry within the group and thus be protected from the
temptations of the dominant culture” (1994: 72).
Abu-Jaber makes use of this party in order to construct a very humorous scene
where she ironically places Fatima in her own territory, where her quest for husbands
takes an almost cartoon-like quality. She initiates the hunt with her war cry of “Time is
for arranging. Husband time” (Abu-Jaber1993: 61). She starts scrutinizing the party
22
Mamdouh, Alia. “Creatures of Arab Fear.” In the House of Silence: Autobiographical Essays by Arab
Women Writers. Ed. Fadia Faqir. Lebanon: Garnet Publishing Ltd, 1998.
113
room looking for a victim, or rather two victims to hunt. “She moved like a sheikh, with
the sword of her gaze tearing away veils, appraising family trees, bank accounts, and
social standing” (62). After some failed attempts, she starts to become desperate to the
point that she cries “By Allah, would you send us a husband!” (63).
After that, Fatima succeeds to making an “electric” matchmaking try when she
introduces her nieces to a candidate that Abu-Jaber calls “Salaam Alaikum” after the
Arabic greeting, which adds a mocking tone to the scene. When the aunt presents this
“old-looking young man” as a university professor, his mother appears.
“I’m the mother,” the woman commanded. “I want to look over this
daughter-in-law.” She circled around Jem and grabbed her jaw. “Open.”
Jem jerked back as Melvie grabbed the woman’s wrist. “Unhand her!”
Melvie cried.
“Naughty, naughty girls” the mother said, while Fatima sighed heavily as
if to say, I know, I know. “How can I know my daughter-in-law before I
know her teeth? You told me she was a good, obedient girl, sweet as a
chicken.”
“Back off lady!” Melvie raised a fist. “I’m warning you.”
“Allah the merciful and munificent! A demon-ifrit.”
Melvie and the mother began bickering, waving their hands at each other.
(64)
This incident includes a heavy dose of satire as we have the impression that the party
room has been converted into a market. More importantly, the supposed future motherin-law’s attempt to check Jem’s teeth is highly significant as it is reminiscent of the
behavior of merchants in slave or even animal markets. The mother-in-law is trying to
check the degree of Jem’s suitability so as to judge whether or not she is good enough
for her son.
This scene reminds of a short story entitled “Remember Vaughn Monroe” 23 by
Evelyn Shakir who comically treats this same topic of searching for brides and grooms
23
Shakir, Evelyn. “Remember Vaughn Monroe.” Post Gibran Anthology of Arab American Writing.
Ed. Khaled Mattawa and Munir Akash. W. Bethesda: Kitab, 1999 .
114
within the community. Here I quote a long passage from the story because I consider
that it is worth noting:
Well, the joke was on them ‘cause they had a hard job getting rid of those
gals. And it’s not because they weren’t pretty, they were pretty enough.
But they didn’t know how to catch a husband, and that’s the long and the
short of it. With Emmie, it was easy. One day, Mitch’s grandma put her
fur piece around her neck and rode the commuter cars from Boston to
Farmingham because a little Arab birdie whispered in her ear that this
family from Zahle – that’s her hometown in Lebanon – they had a pack
of “brides” available.
When Auntie Mai heard company on the porch, she did like always and
whipped off her apron. Then put on a smile, opened the door, and sang
out the usual “Ahlan wa sahlan,” which is just a fancy Arabic way of
saying “Welcome.” Then the two of them sat down like old school chums
and started chatting about this and that but not the main thing… When
they’d been gabbing long enough, auntie showed off the merchandise,
making the gals parade into the living-room, meek as lambs, carrying
trays of Turkish coffee and giant pistachios and home-made macaroons
and Fannie Farmer chocolates. The old lady says, “Bless your hands”
four times – to Evelyn and Yvonne and Antoinette and Belle. But when
she sees Emmie bringing in the grapes, she says, “That’s the one.” (1999:
224-25)
In this passage, Shakir takes the reader to a typical Arab household in Boston where the
homeland’s traditions are still present. She treats the traditional marriage proposal
practice through humor in order to soften her critique of what is perceived as the heavy
burden carried by Arab American parents to marry off their daughters and the difficulty
of finding them suitable Arab husbands in America.
I would argue that both Abu-Jaber and Shakir employ ethnic humor in order to
somehow soften their critique of the community. This inward-turning wit may be
perceived as an internalization of the dominant discourse oriented rather toward
ridiculing Arabs as well as Arab culture and traditions. This supposed identification
with the hegemonic mode of perception may even be viewed as a celebration of cultural
clichéd stereotyping of the community and its strategy of domination, which explains,
in many ways, the raising of some disapproving voices against Arabian Jazz (1993)
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from the members of the community itself. However, the function of humor, according
to Abu-Jaber, is rather to create a kind of connection or bridge with the audience. In this
context, the writer tells Steven Salaita, “I thought it would be a fairly serious book at
first, actually, but humor seemed to present itself as a natural medium – I suppose
because when you’re not sure what sort of reception your story will have, humor seems
to offer more accessibility or intimacy” (2001: 435).
Therefore, Abu-Jaber’s use of humor in her fictional account of the Arab
American experience is a way to contain the tension created by her attempts to demystify her community’s culture. Moreover, she intends to reduce the gap between the
two cultures in question through suggesting the possibility of a cultural duality based on
dialogue and negotiation. The latter is made possible through questioning some cultural
aspects so as to reflect upon them, and humor seems to help. In this respect, Lisa Suhair
Majaj says writes:
As we continue to strengthen our networks and develop our group
identity, we need to expand our vision and move beyond cultural
preservation toward transformation. We need to probe the American as
well as the Arab dimensions of our Arab American identity, and to
engage not only in self-assertion, but also in self-criticism… We need to
take a hard look not only at who we are, but at who we hope to become.
(1999: 71)
This is clearly what Abu-Jaber is doing in her novel. While she explains that “humor
came through my writing because it felt comfortable and it felt like a way to make the
community that I was dealing with seem accessible, human, and familiar” (Evans 1996:
43-44), it also helps her in the task of digging deep inside the components of the Arab
American identity. The author’s perspective raises the dilemma of representation, taking
into account that such tendency does not seem to greatly please some members of the
Arab American community.
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This approach adopted by Abu-Jaber is met with hostility by some critics
belonging to the Arab American community who consider her work a naïve
interpretation of current misconceptions about Arab characters in America. Criticism is
not only directed at her choice of themes and the portrayal of her characters, but her
light tone and the distinctive sense of humor that permeates the novel is seen as a
betrayal of certain Arab values. Interviewed by Jonathan Curiel for the San Francisco
Chronicle, she comments that due to the scarcity of representations of Arab Americans
“the book got looked at under a microscope.” She explains how the novel was put under
scrutiny by some members of her community many of whom think that the author has
reinforced anti-Arab stereotypes through what they consider her ridiculing and satirizing
of Arab and Arab American families. Abu-Jaber tells Curiel,
I think people felt it was mocking and glib. And there were just a lot of
people mad it wasn’t their story. A woman (in the United States, whose
parents were from Lebanon) wrote to me – she was so pissed – saying,
“My father was nothing like the father in your novel. My dad was never
so liberal. I don’t know what kind of father this is supposed to be.”
(Curiel 2004)24
In this respect, Elaine Hagopian’s review of the novel illustrates the controversy
raised by Arabian Jazz concerning the issue of representation. This critic, for instance,
accuses Abu-Jaber of presenting an inaccurate portrayal of Arab Americans in her book;
she considers that “its content represents a stereotype of a stereotype with quite a
number of implausible representations” (1). She even claims that the Arab American
characters displayed in the novel misrepresent the community which may lead to the
distortion of the reader’s understanding of Arab culture. On the other hand, Andrea
Shalal-Esa comments on the cool reception of the novel when she mentions that an
Curiel, Jonathan. “An Arab American Writer Seeks Her Identity.” San Francisco
Chronicle. May 24. 2004.
<http://www.sfgate.com/entertainment/article/An-Arab-American-writer-seeks-her-identity2773799.php>
24
117
Arab American reader, infuriated by the book’s reference to female infanticide
addresses the author saying that Arabs “don’t do these things. And even when they do,
you don’t write about it.” In addition, Shalal-Esa points out that “some Arab American
critics tore [Arabian Jazz] to shreds. One reviewer accused Abu-Jaber of falling into a
naïve liberal feminism and perpetuating clichéd representations of Arabs” (4).25
The reviewer mentioned by Shalal-Esa here is Mervat F. Hatem who argues that:
a naïve liberal feminism, in the name of celebrating cultural diversity, has
attempted to romanticize the Arab American experience, including its
history of racism and cultural stereotyping. In Arabian Jazz, the author
Diana Abu-Jaber reveled in a fictional account of the imperfections of
Arab American experiences including the celebration of the hegemonic
cultural stereotypes of the groups and its racist portrayal. In using many
of the clichéd representations of Arabs, Arab Americans and/or Muslims
as aspects of their reality that have entertainment value, she claimed that
these fictional accounts celebrated cultural diversity. (383-84)
In this context, it is useful to mention here the reaction of some members of the
Chinese American community in the United States to Maxine Hong Kingston’s The
Woman Warrior (1976), especially the critic and playwright Frank Chin, who
denounces the writer’s representation of Chinese culture. He argues that Kingston’s
reinterpretation of the Chinese myth of the heroic feminine figure of Fa Mulan is
actually a distortion, which “is simply a device for destroying history and literature” (3).
He adds that the novel’s false representation of the Chinese male community is actually
based on the white stereotypes of Chinese exoticism. Thus, he considers that “Maxine
Hong Kingston has defended her revision of Chinese history, culture, and childhood
literature and myth by restating a white racist stereotype” (29).
Abu-Jaber explains the concern of her community by the fact that “Arab
Americans have been so maltreated by the media, their image has been so dark, that I
25
Shalal-Esa. Andrea. “Diana Abu-Jaber: The Only Response to Silencing… is to Keep Speaking.”
Al Jadid Magazine, Vol. 8, Nº 39 (Spring 2002). Print.
118
think there’s a real anxiety about the artistic representations that are out there” (ShalalEsa 2002: 6). As we can see, in this case the novel is not perceived as a literary work or
a fiction, because as Pauline Kaldas states, “the question becomes to what extent should
a writer cater to the reader’s tendency to read a novel as if it were a sociological or
anthropological text” (168). Accordingly, the focus becomes oriented towards the
behavior of the Arab American characters as well as what are considered to be
inaccurate details concerning, for instance, historical events or religious elements, and
thus dismissing the literary merit of the novel. In this way, “such responses reveal the
tension between the author’s right to create fictional events and the audience’s
predilection to take those events as truths” (Kaldas 2006: 175).
Therefore, being almost the first novel to treat Arab American themes, Arabian
Jazz (1993) has faced this complex issue related to the dilemma of representation,
taking into account Arab Americans’ expectations of a positive depiction of themselves.
However, Abu-Jaber has chosen to lean towards critique rather than celebration. From
my point of view, there is little to celebrate about an idealized gendered ethnic past, for
instance, which reveals an essentialist perception of one’s identity and the deliberate
intention to perpetrate such patriarchal cultural system favoring the oppression of
women. So I totally agree with Abu-Jaber in her approach to shedding light on this kind
of common behavior through the character of Aunt Fatima while at the same time she
presents a different image of the new generation of Arab American women who resist
this idealized ethnic memory.
Both sisters Jemorah and Melvina seem to challenge these traditional values
although at different levels. While the elder glances once at some Lebanese building
workers (whom Fatima has told her about) when she passes them, the younger is the
one who is continuously facing her aunt’s attempts to find them Arab spouses, and
119
encouraging her sister to reject them. Both sisters also resist their aunt’s perception of
America which is constantly reinforced by the visiting Jordanian members of the
Ramoud family like uncle Fouad. The latter does not consider America to be the right
place to raise one’s daughters:
“You see!” Fouad would announce at the sight of a car accident, a
woman in a skimpy bathing suit, and / or a gunfight on TV. “You see the
place raises this daughters? Drugs, pimps, pushers, every kind of slime
coming up through the sewers at night and taking over. In Old Country
there nothing like that, just the beautiful grandchildren, dancing around
your knees. Here, I don’t look out these window after sunset, jinnis and
white eyes everywhere. (150-51)
Backed by Fouad who has just come from the Arab homeland, Fatima insists on
claiming her ethnic past as a model for her family’s present life in America based on her
no-mingling principle.
In this sense, not only does Abu-Jaber delineate Fatima’s perception of the Arab
American self, but also the “Other,” which is in this case Americans. This idea is better
illustrated by the following extract:
[Fatima] lived among Americans, in places they had built, among their
people, but despite this she wanted to keep herself, her family, and a few
friends apart from the rest. She wanted what the Americans had, but at
the same time she would never relax her hold on herself. It was not
appropriate to mingle. Americans had the money, but the Arabs, ah! They
had the food, the culture, the etiquette, the ways of being and seeing and
understanding how life was meant to be lived. Her wish, always, no
matter what, the sharp wish that cut into her center and had lifted her
eyes with hope was that her nieces should marry Arab boys, preferably in
the family. (360)
Fatima here constructs a set of comparisons between America and the Arab homeland
where she attributes all positive aspects to her own people. She denies the existence of a
real American culture which, according to her, ignores everything but the world of
money and what money can buy. Thus, Fatima does not show any interest in the culture
of the country where she has spent most of her life, as she has chosen to stick to the Old
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Country’s values and resist integration. It is important here to highlight what Abu-Jaber
refers to as the deep “sense of danger” (360) that the aunt feels towards everything
American. She perceives Americanization as a threat to the survival of her Arab values
in the New World. In fact, she is unable to imagine herself outside this model, hence the
absence of the slightest intention to go through a negotiation process to establish her
sense of belonging. Therefore, Fatima’s case represents one of the identification options
offered to Arab American female characters in this novel. Other options are going to be
discussed later through the analysis of the nieces’ dismantling of the aunt’s interference
in their process of self identification. However, before that, I will explore Matussem’s
construction of identity and memory.
3.1.3 Matussem: an Arab Father in America
Abu-Jaber presents a hybridized version of Arab American masculinity through
the character of Matussem, whose masculine identity, being the result of a mixture of
Arab and American qualities and characteristics, has a transnational nature. This
negotiated identity has much to do with the father’s construction of memory, which is
very present in the shaping of his personality, and also in his interaction with his
environment as well as with the other characters. The importance of the father’s identity
negotiation stems from its impact on his struggle to raise his daughters in this American
context and in these circumstances. His struggle is linked to his memory of
displacement and loss. In this sense, Jemorah thinks that “displacement was a feature of
[her father’s] personality” (98), whether in relation to his deceased wife or the image of
home.
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As I have explained earlier, Matussem’s sense of loss is deeply related to his
parents’ homeland, Palestine, as we learn that he “was only two when his family left
Nazareth” (260). We learn as well, through Fatima, that this has been a forced
displacement rather than a chosen emigration, when she says: “What of my losses?
What of my parents’ shame, driven off the good land and sacred home the fathers’
fathers built?” (334). Despite the fact that the Ramoud family identify with Jordan as
the country of origin, Palestine remains omnipresent as Abu-Jaber tries to make a
parallelism between Matussem’s family’s emigration to Jordan with his own when he
leaves Amman for the United States. His migration experience covers up his family’s
displacement from Palestine to Jordan. In this context, “displaced peoples cluster
around remembered or imagined homelands, places, or communities in a world that
seems increasingly to deny such firm territorialized anchors in their actuality” (Gupta
and Ferguson 1992: 11).26 Accordingly, Euclid stands in for Matussem’s family’s
refugee experience, and therefore this American town becomes a representation of
Palestine. Hence, Matussem emerges as an Arab immigrant trying to get established in
America after his wife’s death, while he is haunted by his memories of Palestine.
The second layer of loss is directly related to the death of Nora, which makes a
close connection between the lost home and the lost wife and mother. This idea is
emphasized by setting Nora’s death in Jordan in a way to extend links between the
mother and/or wife figure and home: Nora, the woman who has helped Matussem set
foot in American life. She is the one who “taught him how to speak a new language,
how to handle his new country. His American lover. Through the year of their courtship
she took his hands and fed him words like bread from her lips” (Abu-Jaber 1993: 188).
26
Gupta, Akhil and James Ferguson. “‘Culture’: Space, Identity, and the Politics of Difference.” Cultural
Anthropology, Vol. 7, Nº 1. (February 1992).
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The death of Nora signifies not only the loss of the woman he loves but also that of his
guide to America.
Matussem’s loss is so deep that he is unable to overcome his pain and to make a
new life without Nora. The novel, moreover, opens with Matussem’s memory of his
wife’s death nearly two decades before, “When Matussem Ramoud opened his eyes
each morning, his wife would still not be there. He was amazed by this” (1). Thus, the
reader understands from the very beginning that the death of Matussem’s wife is one of
the central episodes which has deeply shaped his life forever. Abu-Jaber writes that:
After her death, the mornings opened in Matussem’s bed like gray
blossoms, like sharp-winged birds slicing dawn in two. Something
always reminded him of his loss: seeing the back of his wife’s head in a
crowd, the flicker of her pale eyes in Jem’s dark ones, or Melvina
catching her finger to the nape of her neck like her mother. (189-90)
It is obvious how powerful is Matussem’s sense of loss, which leads him to try to fill
the void through keeping Nora’s memory alive. For instance, one night when he is
driving back home, he starts thinking about her: “If he had been asked, when he had
really been alive – when had life been most vital? – he would have said, without pause,
in the arms of his wife” (238). His thoughts make him realize that,
[I]t seemed to him that he had spent the last twenty years seeing the
world cloaked, day and night as drapery, where the appearance of life
was not life at all, only gestures toward it; life was whatever lay behind
the curtain. The world, to Matussem, was lying in wait, a place that he
would go to someday and resume living. (238)
Abu-Jaber here emphasizes the pain endured by Matussem who is unable to move on
with his life. Since he has moved to Euclid, he has continued working at a meaningless
job at the town’s hospital and taking care of his daughters without even attempting to
meet other women. He is waiting for the moment to put an end to this state of stagnation
and return to life. However, Nora is the main link between Matussem and America. In
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this respect, once he tells his daughters: “Believe me, sometimes I don’t know why I
move to these balls-freezer place. Only you mother can get me to stay in these
refrigerator” (39). Again, it is Nora who has provided him with the ability to live in the
New World.
This double sense of loss rules Matussem’s life as he is torn between the
memories of his Palestinian homeland and his struggle to establish himself in America
and raise his daughters especially after Nora’s death. This sense of displacement and
loss occupies an integral part of Matussem’s personality and definitely has an essential
impact on the negotiation of his identity as a father. In addition, the novel places an
important focus on this immigrant father’s relationship with his two daughters. He
mainly identifies himself as a father, which shows the importance of fatherhood in the
construction of his complex character. For instance, this is how he introduces himself in
one of his concerts:
“Call me Big Daddy,” Matussem chanted on. “I am Père, Abu, Fader,
Señor, Senior. Call me Pappy, Pappa, Padre, PawPaw, Sir! I big Arab
coming at you, guy flying in towel, fifty thousand mile a second…Call
me Big Daddy! I’ve got a car and two daughters, I’m free! Is my life’s
work, is the work of the world, is nice work if you can get. My greatest
work, a father! Now for fathers out there in fatherland, a little song we’re
making up as we go, I call ‘Big Daddy’!” (148-49)
For Matussem, therefore, fatherhood is a lifetime job that he is pleased and proud to
exercise, taking into account that he is aware of the huge responsibility he has to bear to
take care of Jem and Melvina. Many scholars like David J. Eggenbeen and Chris
Knoester,27 for instance, in their study on masculinity have investigated questions
related to the importance of fatherhood. While emphasizing that fatherhood is important
to masculinity, they find that activities of fatherhood and caring for families such as
27
Eggenbeen, David J. and Chris Knoester, “Does Fatherhood Matter for Men?” Journal of Marriage and
the Family. Vol. 63, Issue 2 (May 2001). Print.
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feeding, nurturing, and participating in direct childcare often take a back-seat to work.
They argue that fatherhood is changing, but it is still seen as being centered on a
traditional idea of the father as a leader and a provider rather than as a nurturer or
cleaner. This is obviously not Matussem’s case as a widowed father in charge of taking
care of all the needs of his daughters.
Moreover, Matussem’s own sense of fatherhood is central to the construction of
his relationship with his daughters. In this sense, Jemorah thinks that “he wouldn’t be
the same father, she knew, if he had stayed in Jordan and raised them there. His removal
was part of that soft grieving light behind his eyes and part of the recklessness of his
laugh” (98). This internal monologue sheds light on Matussem’s in-betweenness as an
Arab immigrant in America and his ongoing process of negotiation as a man and, of
course, as a father. In this context, his daughters have grown up listening to the stories
he tells them, and that he calls “instructional stories.” Jem even refers to her father as
“Shahrazad, giving life” (99) through his storytelling. Matussem “populated America
with figures from his childhood stories. Jem thought it sharpened his focus on the
world” (98).
Matussem here can stand for Abu-Jaber’s father as the writer has often
mentioned his storytelling: “My father and my uncles are all great storytellers, and they
regaled us with jokes, fables and reminiscences about their growing-up years. And that
storytelling, along with food, was one of the great pillars of my own cultural education”
(Field 2006: 221). Likewise, Matussem’s stories play an important role in his daughters’
cultural education. Abu-Jaber is switching roles at this point in particular as she charges
the father with the task of performing an inter-generational cultural transmission, which
is normally dedicated to a female figure like a mother, for example. In this context,
Karen E. Rowe argues that “fairy tales are not simply tales told by fairies; implicitly
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they are tales told by women, […] who link once again the craft of spinning with the art
of telling fated truths” (63). In this way, Elaine Showalter highlights how women’s
fiction has formed a tradition of female writing and how these women writers “were the
links in the chain that bound one generation to the next,” creating “the continuities in
women’s writing” (7).28 In this case, however, it is the father, a male figure, who is
guaranteeing generational continuity.
One of the stories that Matussem always tells the girls is about “Za’enti da’ar the
beauty of the house,” which is about a woman who “sit upstair in her bedroom window
and look down on everyone. ‘I so goddamn beautiful!’ she think. ‘They all look like
ants from here!’ she think.” One day, the house is on fire; and while all the members of
the family are trying to escape, Za’enti da’ar remains in her window refusing to leave:
Her hair just above the fires. All they yell to her, they yell, ‘Za’enti da’ar!
Za’enti da’ar! Come down here, you crazy ass.’ And stuff like that. Only
she don’t listen. No way, unhun. And you know why –”
“Because she was Za’enti da’ar,” Melvie and Jem would say.
“That’s right. She is beauty-of-the-House. And she says to them. “No
way, you must be crazy. I am beauty of these house. I don’t care if it is
on fire, you don’t get me out in the street.’ And so, because she Za’enti
da’ar, she burned up completely. They could hear her screaming out in
the streets, aieehhaaa!” The girls would already have their hands over
their ears. (Abu-Jaber 1993: 96-97)
The story is thus about a girl’s obsession with her physical beauty which ends up
causing her death in a tragic way. She prefers to burn alive than to leave her house.
Matussem uses this story, for instance, when one of the girls hesitates to join him in one
of his outings, and he tells her “Come, Za’enti da’ar! Don’t take so long!” (98).
Matussem’s stories are a combination of his childhood memories and fairy tales,
together with his own experience in Jordan as well as in America. Such a collage of
remixed stories is what Homi Bhabha calls “an insurgent act of cultural translation,”
28
Showalter, Elaine. A Literature of Their Own: British Women Novelists from Brontë to Lessing.
Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 1977. Print.
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which is created because “the borderline work of culture demands an encounter with
‘newness’ that is not part of the continuum of past and present” (Bhabha 1995: 7). One
of the purposes of Matussem’s storytelling is his search for a way to keep live his
cultural memory and, therefore, the Arab part of his cultural identity. In this context, he
attributes some Jordanian names to people in his American entourage. For example, he
calls the woman who screams a lot “Yasmin Al-Hassan,” which is a name that comes
from a real character from his memories in Jordan. Hence, Jem considers that these are
her father’s “childhood friends; if Matussem recognized them everywhere, this country
couldn’t be such a foreign place after all” (Abu-Jaber 1993: 98).
In my view, Matussem uses these stories in order to recreate his cultural identity
and lessen his alienation through making American more familiar to him, although he
states that “nothing get you ready for real America!” (98), this country which turns to be
absolutely different from the one of the movies. As a matter of fact, “the enchantment of
America had eventually drawn him across an ocean” (99). However, he has moved to a
country where he is doomed to face prejudices and displacement, where his in-laws
reject him for being an Arab, and where his boss refers to him as “the dirty sand nigger”
(99). As a consequence, Matussem tries to substitute this ugly face of America with his
own version of it based on his fantasies of the New World which have motivated him to
leave Jordan, and also on his attempt to reconcile both worlds he belongs to.
His complex relationship with the Arab homeland explains the feelings that have
surfaced in his last trip to Jordan when he realizes that he is “in the wrong place, that he
never would be at home here” (263). Indeed, Matussem does not want Jordan to be his
daughters’ home either, in order to spare them the social and gender constraints that
have shaped his sisters’ lives. Abu-Jaber, therefore, portrays Matussem as the opposite
image of the commonly known stern and rigid Arab father. He is rather portrayed as an
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understanding father who has established a very friendly relationship with his
daughters. It is true that just after Jemorah’s twentieth birthday, he “brought home
friends from work, anyone from the head of oncology to the guy who managed the
used-car lot down the street. All Arabs, all fifty years old at least,” but then he soon
“told the aunts that Jem had decided to become an old maid and stay with her father”
(11). Hence, Matussem does not allow Fatima to influence him with her obsession to
find Arab husbands for the girls, because he simply opposes her traditional views of
women. In this respect, his thinks that he “would never throw them into unwanted
marriage” (178), because he does not believe in the tradition of arranged marriages. He
himself married Nora out of love, which is why he wants Jem and Melvie to also have
the opportunity to choose their partners.
Matussem’s opinion about a possible love affair between Jem and an old
classmate of hers is an obvious illustration of the last idea. Gil Sesame declares his love
to an indifferent Jemorah and tries to convince her to become his lover and move to
Utah with him. She tells her father about the young man’s courtship and that she does
not understand his “sudden passion” towards her. So Matussem takes her hands and
tells her, “With love, there no reason. Tell me about these Gilbo Sesamoon, he good
boy?” Then he overtly encourages her to go with him if she loves him:
He wants to take you to Utah, right? There desert out there and big
skies…
Why not try it? What’s the hurt? Believe me, sometimes I don’t know
why I move to these balls-freezer place. Only your mother can get me to
stay in these refrigerator. So why stick here? These way you will get
warmed up and get a man all in one time, and Aunt Fatima will get off
my neck, too. Don’t think she isn’t going to drag some ghoul out the
family closet right now for you to marry. (38-39)
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Here, Matussem is encouraging his daughter to rebel against Arab traditions and release
herself from her aunt’s pressure. He believes that love can transcend all kinds of
obstacles and differences like it did before with him and Nora.
Matussem raises no objections to a possible relationship between Jemorah and
an American man, which is not very common among Arab fathers. This point is stressed
by Louise Cainkar who writes that “marriage of a Palestinian Muslim woman to a nonArab, especially a non-Muslim Arab, is highly frowned upon by the entire Palestinian
community regardless of social class” (1994: 94). While Cainkar’s study focuses mainly
on the Muslim Palestinian community in America, the rejection of unions between Arab
women and non-Arab men is valid within the Arab community as a whole, whether with
Muslim or Christian backgrounds. However, Arab American parents encourage their
children to attend the community’s social events which offer the opportunity for them to
find potential spouses.
In my opinion, Matussem’s rejection of this Arab tradition is highly significant
because it reveals his intention to do away with restrictive and rigid mores forced on
Arab women, while Arab men are generally spared. In this context, Cainkar asserts that
Palestinian men, and Arab men in general, “are allowed to date European-Americans,
spend nights out of the home, even live with U. S. women they are not married to. And
while most Palestinian families would prefer their sons to marry another Palestinian
Muslim, marriages outside the ethnic groups are accepted” (1994: 95). Hence,
Matussem longs to set his daughters free from the sexist traditions of his Arab culture,
because what really matters for him is his daughters’ happiness and their capacity to
make decisions by themselves about their future.
As I see it, Matussem is the model of the Arab American father that Abu-Jaber is
celebrating in her novel, a free-spirited and understanding father who imposes no
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gender restrictions on his daughters. She suggests the need of Arab Americans to be
conscious about the reality of their lives in the New World, as Matussem is through his
attempts to reconcile his new life in America with the type of masculinity he had learnt
earlier in the Arab homeland. In this negotiation, he tries to do away with the traditional
patriarchal nature of Arab fatherhood through challenging the Old World’s assumptions
of the subservience of women. Therefore, he struggles in America to find an in-between
space for his daughters allowing them to enjoy the positive aspects offered by both
cultures they are linked to.
As we can see, Matussem has chosen America to be a home for him and his
family, as it is the land of his two passions, his wife and jazz. His interest in Jazz starts
just after Nora’s death and his search for “something to help the pulse of grief in his
throat, in his hands” (Abu-Jaber 1993: 239). Playing drums is a hobby which helps him
survive his loss and partially fill up the void left by his wife. Hence, Jazz allows him to
build a bridge to communicate with Nora,
His sense of loss was sometimes so potent that he became disoriented.
His need to drum grew sharp as a knife cut; he tapped and shuffled
behind his desk. He made his secretaries nervous, and visitors to his
office would stay for only the briefest sessions until his tapping became
too much. Matussem’s daughters, Jemorah and Melvina, could tell when
he was napping – not just feigning sleep to eavesdrop – because his feet
would start jerking rhythmically. (1-2)
Thus, jazz emerges as the major element which compensates Matussem for his feelings
of loss as well as displacement, which derives from the very nature of this musical
genre originating from African American work songs and spirituals which were deeply
rooted expressions of their communal life. In this context, Stephen Matterson writes that
“jazz properly begins in New Orleans in the early 20th century and its immediate roots
are in African American musical traditions, both religious such as the
SPIRITUAL,
and
secular, such as the work song” (113). One of the ancestors of Jazz is the blues which
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lies at the core of the jazz tradition, being the expression of loss, sorrow and
displacement in the slave experience. For Matussem, jazz is a kind of refuge enabling
him to bridge distances with his deceased wife and express his great love towards her.
Drumming has a healing effect on him as it helps him alleviate his pain. In this way, he
has learnt gradually to live with this sense of loss. Jazz, therefore, provides the
possibility for their love story to carry on and to acquire an infinite dimension, and
drumming is like an offering that he gives to this love. When he sits down to drum he
says, “this go out to my wife, this go out for myself” (Abu-Jaber 1993: 240).
On the other hand, jazz allows Matussem to connect with his childhood
memories as he remembers the drummer of his village back in Jordan,
a vagrant who pounded at hide-covered drums with his hands at sunup
and sundown. He had gone to weddings, funerals and births; the other
men would sit with him, overturn pots and kettles and drum with three
fingers and the heel of their palms, singing, the women ululating their
high voices into the desert. The memory of singing mingled with his
memories of the Muslim muezzin, caught like a princess in the tower of
the mosque. (239-40)
It seems that one of the effects of drumming on Matussem is to make him feel a certain
sense of community directly connected with his childhood memories in Jordan.
Drumming there is related to social gatherings where people are happily having fun and
celebrating. Moreover, it reminds him of the coexistence between Muslim and Christian
people over there. Although Matussem is not Muslim, he still remembers the muezzin’s
call for prayer. He even tries to imitate him once on a Saturday morning to his
daughters’ astonishment, “‘But you’re not even Muslim! Your family is Syrian
Orthodox,’ Melvie shouted. ‘The whole neighborhood can see you up there chanting
prayers. Someday you’re going to fall off that roof and break your back” (355). This
musical memory related to drumming and also to Muslim religious chanting makes
Matussem link music to spirituality transcending in this way any physical or external
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restrictions. In fact, this strong sense of community is also applicable to his current life
in America.
Despite being an American musical genre, jazz allows Matussem to use a
traditional Arab instrument – the drum – related to his childhood musical memory to
play American music, which is in harmony with jazz’s transcultural nature. Hence, this
is true to the essence of jazz, as this uniquely American art form is the result of the
fusion of two great musical traditions in the United States, the European and the
African. In addition, jazz translates the fact of bridging the gap between what are
considered high and low cultures. This tolerant fusing spirit of Jazz continues to unite
people across the divides of race, religion and national boundaries as it is put into
practice through “The Big Band Sound of Mat Ramoud and the Ramoudettes,” the Jazz
band which brings together Matussem and some American friends from his
neighborhood. As Matterson explains, “for some writers, notably Ralph Ellison, the
Jazz band has been used as an image of an ideal community, in which individual
expression is encouraged but which also exists within a group framework” (113). In this
way, jazz creates an unlimited space for Matussem to celebrate his negotiated self as a
member of the American community. Moreover, it provides him with the strength he
needs to challenge death and carry on after the loss of his wife. This music is the means
through which he expresses his need to “[look] ahead at every moment. Going forward
meant that he was still alive; he pushed against jazz; drumming was living” (Abu-Jaber
1993: 187).
Apart from being Matussem’s song of life, jazz becomes a means to make ethnic
particularity reach beyond its own boundaries. Being a musical and emotional language
of communication, it provides a middle ground between his Arab heritage and the music
of America, becoming in this way a site for Matussem’s negotiation of his Arab
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American identity as a man as well as a father. Suhair Majaj states that “the novel turns
in its final passage to a metaphor for Jazz, positing cultural cross-over and
improvisation as an alternative to unitary identification” (2000: 332). Thus, Abu-Jaber
ends her novel with a cross-cultural dialogue composed of the sounds of “Jazz and trills
of Arabic music” (Abu-Jaber 1993: 374) with Matussem playing his own version of
American jazz, which is obviously Arabian jazz. In this sense, jazz begins as a reference
to black music and then becomes Arab. This idea reveals again Abu-Jaber’s intention to
extend links with the African American community and, hence, her focus on
racialization as a perspective to approach her Arab American characters. After studying
Matussem’s patterns of identification as an Arab father in America, now I will focus on
his daughters’ process of self construction as first-generation Arab American women.
3.1.4 The sisters: The Nurse and the Dreamer
Early in Arabian Jazz, Melvina asks her sister Jemorah to remember a Bedouin
saying: “In the book of life, every page has two sides” (6). The “two sides” are actually
multiple sets of two sides consisting of two cultures, two families, two identities, and
two languages. All of these elements proceed jointly in order to give shape to the girls’
performance as young Arab American women in the American context. From an early
age, the two sisters have been claimed by these two backgrounds due to their upbringing
in an atmosphere characterized by its double allegiance. Again, we can trace here the
author’s own experience as she grew up listening to conflicting versions about her
identity. His father used to remind her that she was fully Arab. However, some paternal
relatives called her “the light one” because of her pale skin and green eyes. As she
explains:
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Growing up, I was given very mixed messages… I had my father, who
said, “This is absolutely who you are.” Then I had a all these people who
were extended family – and also in the Arab community – saying, “No,
no, no. This is much better. You want to look American; you want to be
American.” It was very confusing.29
Jem and Melvie have lived similar circumstances, which further complicates their
journey towards self identification.
As an example of that, just before the Ramoud’s trip to Jordan, they receive a
visit from Fatima and her husband Zaeed. The aunt, true to form, looks at nine-year-old
Jem and baby Melvie, and “murmured in English, ‘Beautiful! Beautiful babies! Pure as
water. You come back to home soon, come back to Old Country, marry the handsome
Arab boys and makes for us grandsons!” (77). Fatima’s exclamation implies that
according to her, her nieces’ home is Jordan where they are supposed to end up
marrying Arab husbands. She asserts the girls’ Arabness and, therefore, expects them to
lean towards the Arab side. However, Nora, the mother, has a different perception of
things, as revealed through her reaction to Fatima’s comment:
Nora’s lips tightened to a streak. She stood and left the room…
Later at night, Nora bent over the girls, tucking them in. “Your home is
here. Oh, you will travel, I want you to. But you always know where
your home is.” The ends of her straight, long hair brushed their faces, its
bright red fringes swinging and making sparks. Soon they would be
flying to the moon to visit their other family. (78)
Nora perceives Jordan as somewhere very remote but which is always present just like
“the moon.” She wants her daughters to make a journey back to their Arab origins to
know their father’s homeland and extended family. On the other hand, she 134tress134s
their Americanness, as she believes that they belong to America and that they have to
Curiel, Jonathan. “An Arab American Writer Seeks Her Identity.” San Francisco
Chronicle. May 24. 2004.
<http://www.sfgate.com/entertainment/article/An-Arab-American-writer-seeks-her-identity2773799.php>
29
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identify themselves with it accordingly. It seems that she wants them to observe their
father’s culture without getting involved in it, because she cannot imagine the
possibility that they might return to what Matussem has left behind.
During this same trip to Jordan, Jem and Melvie witness the divergence between
Nora and Matussem’s sisters. Due to his wife’s “insist[ence] that silent baby Melvina
would surely cry all night,” Matussem declines his sisters’ invitation and rents an
apartment for their stay there. This seems to upset Matussem’s sisters who have
expected them to be accommodated in the family’s house. “‘Amerkani,’ the aunts,
who’d borne thirty eight babies between the six of them, said to each other. ‘Too good
to stay with us!’” (78). Hence, Nora’s aim to maintain a certain distance from her
husband’s family has engendered their disapproval, which reveals a kind of clash
between two different concepts of family, the nuclear and the extended one. Moreover,
this divergence indicates different notions of privacy and domesticity: Nora comes from
the nuclear family tradition of white culture, where the extended family has increasingly
come to be considered an artifact of the past, whereas in Matussem’s homeland, the
extended family network still has a strong presence, as people there have a familistic
orientation towards life.
In this way, from an early age, Jem and Melvie have witnessed the cultural
collisions between their mother and aunts. These mixed messages have placed the girls
very early on the cultural borderline, provoking a sense of ambivalence in their process
of self identification as Arab American women in the United States. The ambivalence of
this ongoing process is enhanced by the mother’s death. This traumatic experience,
which occupies a central position in the novel, has a deep impact on the two sisters’
patterns of identification. However, the trauma of their mother’s death acts differently in
the forging of the personality of both of them. In addition, the difference between
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twenty-nine-year-old Jem and twenty-two-year-old Melvie is delineated in their very
names. In this context, Mazen Naous states that “‘Jemorah’ is a transliteration of the
Arabic word meaning ‘live coal’ (Baalbaki, 430)30 and ‘Melvina’ is a name of Irish
origin. The sisters’ names derive from their parents’ cultural backgrounds: Arab and
Irish American” (63).31 Therefore, the existence of Jem and Melvie in itself symbolizes
this union between the Arab and the American sides. On the other hand, they have
different perceptions of what it means to be Arab American, reflected in each one’s
struggle to straddle both cultures she belongs to and to find a place for herself in
America. Moreover, the two sisters have opposite characters. While Jemorah emerges as
a silent dreamer lacking self-confidence and auto-esteem, Melvina is realist and highly
determined.
Melvina’s peculiar character is strongly affected by her mother’s absence. In this
sense, her personality is the outcome of her early childhood memories, and particularly
the vague distant moments that she, as a two-year-old baby, has lived with her mother.
Her imagination is constantly reproducing the night when her mother dies: “She had
met with death personally. When she was two and a half she’d sat up in her crib in her
parents’ bedroom in Jordan and watched it come in through the window” (178). Melvie
pretends that, despite her age at that moment, she still remembers every single second of
that night when she sees death coming to take her mother off, as it “cascaded through
the air in a veil, like the ones that flew around belly dancers, a veil like Salome’s. It
turned over and over, tumbling in folds over their heads as Melvina kept watch” (178).
At that moment, she learns “instinctively, inarticulately, that death came to people in
30
Baalbaki, Rohi, ed. Al-Mawrid: A Modern Arabic-English Dictionary.10th ed. Beirut: Dar El-Ilm
LilMalayin, 1997.
31
Naous, Mazen. “Arabian Jazz and the Need for Improvising Arab Identity in the U.S.” MELUS.
Volume 34, Number 4 (Winter 2009).
136
personal guises: one would see a fly where another saw a fish or a star. This veil, she
understood, would be the way death revealed itself to her” (178).
Triggered by her helplessness to do anything to prevent death from taking off
her mother, she decides to become a nurse. She explains that “from that night on she
knew she was called to pursue the greatest of professions, the most physically,
emotionally, and intellectually demanding of any field, the most misunderstood and
martyred, the closest to divinity: nurse” (178-79). Therefore, this traumatic experience
has led her to establish her identity as “all nurse” (13) who is regarded at the hospital
where she works as “the dedicated life-saving nurse” (Chérif 2003: 217). This
identification with her profession makes her totally absorbed by the hospital space to
such an extent that it dominates many details of her personal life. For instance, at the
age of fifteen she attends “both high school and her first full-time year of nursing
school.” Even days off from school, she is used to wearing “spotless white slacks and
white blouse, more or less identical to those she wore at work” (Abu-Jaber 1993: 31).
Melvie’s devotion to her job makes her a full-time nurse whether at hospital or
outside. This is reflected, for instance, in her relationship with the heroin addict Larry
Fasco whom she provides with methadone from the hospital to help him ease his
addiction. Acting here like a “healer and killer” (Chérif 2003: 217) at the same time, the
fact that she is the one who gives him the drugs ensures her control of the situation. In
this way, in her personal involvement with people she remains in her role of nurse. Even
her relationship with her sister and father follows this pattern as not only is she
concerned with their behavior but also she feels responsible for their well-being. She
shows her concern about her father’s health, for example, before a trip to Jordan,
The day before she’d given her father diet cards with long lists of foods
he was not, under any circumstances, to touch. She’d also given him a
paramedic’s first-aid kit, full of things like surgical thread and booster
shots for malaria, hepatitis, and typhus – especially typhus. (265)
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Melvina’s identification of herself with her profession can be explained through
the following statement by Julia Kristeva concerning the relationship between the
foreigner and work:
You will recognize a foreigner in that he still considers work as a value.
A vital necessity, to be sure, his sole means of survival, on which he does
not necessarily place a halo of glory but simply claims as a primary right,
the zero degree of dignity. Even though some, once their minimal needs
are satisfied, also experience an acute pleasure in asserting themselves in
and through work: as if it were the chosen soil, the only source of
possible success. (17-18)
While I do not consider Melvina a foreigner, I think that Kristeva’s idea can be applied
to this case, taking into account the girl’s background as the daughter of an Arab father
and an American mother. Melvina’s devotion to her job is her passport to American
society. Through her ambition and enthusiasm, she is meant to stand for the symbol of
the American dream in this novel, since although she is only twenty-two years old, she
is already the hospital’s head nurse, and a very successful one that. She has gained a lot
of respect thanks to her commitment and efforts,
The staff in her hospital and the hospital community at large knew and
respected her and honored her commands. Doctors consulted her as a
matter of course. Patients and their families sent her flowers, chocolates,
even jewelry – which she promptly returned, not wishing to appear
compromised. (Abu-Jaber 1993: 179)
Melvina’s dedication to fight death and save lives has developed in her an obsession
with control and order. She has created a “robotic character” (Kaldas 2006: 180)
expressed on the surface by rationality, strength, determination, and power, which is
rather a façade or a mask to conceal the sense of loss and ambivalence she suffers from,
mainly as a consequence of her mother’s death.
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While Melvina struggles to alleviate her father’s grief in order to stop him from
falling apart, and to back her sister to get a new life out of the hospital and Euclid, she
tries to remain in control, being the only rational individual in a family of dreamers. It
seems that she has no choice but to behave differently due to the role she is doomed to
play. She is responsible for taking care of her family, and for that she needs strength. In
fact, “her expression was so penetrating that Fatima was once moved to say that Melvie
had ‘never looked like a girl.’” In this context, her sister claims that “Melvina had been
making herself into that woman for as long as Jem could remember” (12). Hence, her
personality has allowed her to be aware of her dual sense of belonging as she seems to
have a clearer image of herself and of the borderland territory where she is situated,
while her sister has been hesitating between which of those two territories to jump into.
Much of this awareness stems from her identification as “a nurse not just some person”
(179), which puts her out of reach in relation to both cultures. She is the one who
decides what to appreciate and what to criticize, what to take and what to reject, because
she seems to stand at the same distance from her Arab and American sides.
As an example of that, Melvie does not hesitate to criticize Arab culture and
challenge her aunt Fatima’s attempts to reconstruct the Arab homeland’s gendered
memory through her nieces. She calls into question the traditional matchmaking that she
considers “human sacrifices” practiced by Fatima and her friends who, according to her,
are “feeding their virgins to their raging gods of macho domination and chronic
dissipation. And that means us” (51). For that reason, she incites her sister to attach no
importance to her aunt’s insistence that she is in marriage emergency. Melvie gives
voice to her determination when she asks her sister to “give no quarter and take no
enemies. Take liberty or death and nothing in between!” (47).
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The clash between Fatima and Melvie reaches its climax during the welcoming
party in honor of the visiting Jordanian archbishop. The niece overhears a conversation
between her aunt and some friends about the circumstances of Nora’s death. Fatima
reveals unfriendly sentiments towards her defunct sister-in-law who “doesn’t get the
vaccine, these is how! Who get typhus anymore? And die in one night, boom? Nobody
but for silly tourists who don’t get their shots and come to Jordan to show how superior
they are!” (66). Fatima obviously considers Nora an arrogant tourist who looks down on
her husband’s Arab family. Melvina is shocked by her aunt’s interpretation of her
mother’s passing away, which is actually a central issue still casting a shadow over the
lives of her family. Her reaction to Fatima’s comments is rather violent,
“Excuse me, but what were you saying just now?” Melvie asked Fatima,
fists on her hips. Estrelia tried to wave Melvie away, but the
confrontation thrilled Fatima; gin was boiling through her, mingling with
a hundred grievances and irritations. Zaeed was up on the dance floor
with Amy; there was nothing to constrain Fatima; she was free. Soaring
on a hot wind of anger, she shouted, “Your mother dies on because she
hates Arabs!”
Melvina slapped her so hard that Fatima spilled out of her chair. (66)
Fatima seems to blame Nora for her own death as she thinks that she has died of typhus
in Jordan on purpose in order to make Arabs look bad. Melvina’s response is violent
when she slaps her aunt’s face to punish her and to protect her mother’s memory. Her
behavior in itself reflects her indifference towards Arab traditions, and here in particular
that of respect for one’s elders.
However, Melvina is absolutely loyal to her family which is, as we have seen,
her second priority after her profession. For her, “after the family there was little room
over for anyone else.” In this respect, Jem says that her sister is “apt to call anyone who
was not at least a second cousin twice-removed criminal” (33). This devotion is
concentrated on her Arab family, taking into account the fact that the Ramouds have not
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been in contact with their American relatives since Nora’s death. This tight relationship
with this part of the family places her in close contact with her Arab background. In this
sense, Melvie cannot deny her appreciation of many sides of her Arab heritage. For
instance, she
thought of Arabic as the tongue of the heart, of irrational, un-American
passions, of pinching and kisses covering both cheeks. Tongues could
climb Arabic syllable over syllable like fingers ascending piano keys,
enabling great crescendos of screaming. Arabic represented to Melvie the
purest state of emotional energy. (304)
Therefore, as a hyphenated individual, Melvie identifies with some particular cultural
markers related to her ancestors’ homeland. It seems that she has found her own
formula of negotiation to come to terms with her double heritage, which enables her to
enjoy both sides of the hyphen. In this sense, she appreciates many elements from her
Arab background, but she keeps the option to criticize it and also to adjust it to her
American home. Hence, Melvie seems to be the only member of her family who is not
affected by the values and traditions of the Old Country. She has succeeded in finding a
certain balance to the hyphen linking Arabness to Americanness.
Melvina is very American in the way she is extremely identified with her
profession which is a crucial part of her life; and she is happy with it. She is an
independent woman who is not ready to give up her freedom whether for cultural or
sentimental motives, hence her interest in motorcycles:
Melvina, despite her appreciation of law and order, couldn’t help a
sneaking admiration of bikes. She had a sense that with a twitch of fate, it
might have been her on a Harley, perhaps glued to the back of some
disposable man as she’d seen many of the women; hair fluttering under
their helmets, molding their bodies to the momentum, closer than a
marriage vow. What was more interesting to her, though, was the thought
of mounting her own engine. (281-82)
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Melvina’s interest in Harley-Davidson motorcycles, an icon of American culture, is
noteworthy as it reinforces the delineation of her character as an independent American
woman.
The experience of riding a Harley-Davidson motorcycle in American culture has
always been a symbol of freedom and mobility. In this respect, back in the1970’s,
Harley-Davidson’s advertising campaign presented its product as “The Great American
Freedom Machine.” This image “is also ideal for defining what a Harley-Davidson
means for riders of almost any time and any place…a motorcycle signified speed and
speed signified freedom” (Dregni1998: 51). Therefore, Melvina is attracted to the
experience of riding in the wind as she even longs to possess her own motorcycle. She
does not need a man to ride it for her because she can do it on her own. The image of
Melvina riding a Harley summarizes the girl’s personality as well as her principles,
implying being true to her nature as an independent woman who lives her life according
to her own rules and who is ready to remove all kinds of constraints that could prevent
her from being herself.
However, the process of identity negotiation undergone by her sister Jemorah is
totally different. The latter’s struggle with her double identity is more complex as she
emerges as a twenty-nine- year old woman who feels suspended between both sides of
the hyphen. As Alice Evans comments, Jem is “someone who is trying to fight through
what she’s been told she is” (45).32 She seems to be “not quite at home in either her
Arab or her American contexts” (Majaj 2000: 332), which illustrates her displacement
in both cultural spaces. Consequently, Jem finds herself involved in a struggle in order
to find a space of her own and compensate herself after twenty-nine years, as according
32
Evans, Alice. “Half-and-Half: A Profile of Diana Abu-Jaber.” Poets and Writers Magazine.
Vol. 24, 4. 1996. Print.
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to her own words, “everything in her past seemed doused in gloomy work and dark
winters” (Abu-Jaber 1993: 29).
From the beginning of the novel, Jem seems still and indifferent as she cannot be
bothered to make any effort to move forward in life. The same hospital that provides
meaning and happiness in Melvina’s life plays the role of a prison in that of her sister,
confining her in a meaningless job that she neither likes nor identifies with. In spite of
that, she does not initially let her sister convince her to study at university. This
situation marked by a deep sense of loss makes Jem unable to locate herself and figure
out who she is, which creates a kind of void that she constantly tries to fill up with
memories of her deceased mother. She is haunted by these childhood memories, so
much so that she is living her life through them. Her mother’s death is like a barrier
preventing her from getting out of the bubble where she has locked herself up. She is
not even at ease with her inner self because she still has issues pending to come to terms
with, like facing the real world, on the one hand, and finding a way to reconcile the two
components of her mixed identity, on the other.
Meanwhile, Jemorah appears as a fragile and silent dreamer lacking selfconfidence and living through a traumatic memory. Like her father and sister, the girl’s
life is affected by the loss of Nora when she is only nine years old. As I have
commented before, Jem is constantly trying to remember her mother and make sense of
her death. Hence, she is haunted by the recurrent memory of that crucial night of her life
when “her mother’s hand turn[ed] from hot to cold in her own” (86). The little girl “had
been awakened by her mother’s breathing. It was ragged, vibrating through her. Jem
went to her parents’ room, drawn by the rattling, and she was shocked that her father
could lie asleep next to this woman who lay turning into stone” (78). While Matussem
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is sleeping, Jem together with her sister witness the passing away of their mother, which
has given shape to this trauma translated into a deep sense of loss.
This feeling reaches such an extent that “a week after Nora’s death, Jem began
to wonder if her mother had ever been real, or if she was just a sweet story that Jem had
told herself” (81). Therefore, the girl connects her mother’s memory with fairy tales as
she starts to think of her mother as a story and even creates a myth out of it as a way to
replace reality:
In Jordan the pleasures of the familiar were gone… Her mother was also
there, her memory residing in the steepening streets. She was a jinni,
whose real activity Jem could scarcely remember, less a memory than a
presence who might fly out from any crook or corner, perhaps from the
tubs of corn and butter vendors carried on muleback. (81)
Her inability to properly remember her mother makes her live her pain in silence. She
tries to gather her fragmented memories about Nora, and creates a world of her own
dominated by her invented narrative about her mother. Her silence even bothers
Melvina, who accuses her sister of denying her access to their mother’s memory by
preventing her from knowing about Nora’s life. She confronts Jem saying, “You never
tell me about her, you never talk about her, it’s as if you’re trying to punish me for
something.” She continues, “It’s as if she were your personal secret. Like you want to
keep her all to yourself” (191).
At this very moment, Jem recognizes that “she had lacked of courage” (191) to
face the pain that has transformed her life into an unbearable existence to the point that
she “sometimes felt that the disease should have carried her off with her mother” (79).
Hence, the girl questions the meaning of her own life without her mother as it is
dominated by “the scent of absence” (86). This burden leads her to escape reality and
find refuge in her own world where fragmented memories coexist with stories and
mythical creatures. I would suggest that Jem’s situation matches Edward Said’s
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description of exile when he says that “Much of the exile’s life is taken up with
compensating for disorienting loss by creating a new world to rule… The exile’s new
world, logically enough, is unnatural and its unreality resembles fiction” (2001, 181).33
The girl’s world of stories comes into existence just after her mother’s death, at the
moment when “Jem felt like she was living inside the Waterbabies tale that her maternal
grandmother used to read to her – fairy-children like mermaids swept along the world’s
current. She swam in loss” (Abu-Jaber1993: 80).
In this imaginative world, we find the gas station attendant Ricky Ellis, Jem’s
half-Onondagan lover, whom she has known since her childhood. She knows him from
her daily silent school bus rides when she quietly remains in her seat contemplating the
scenery from the bus window. On these trips, her eyes are mostly attracted by this boy
who is “a neighbor from one of the ‘bad’ families that Fatima talked about” (33). She
sees him everyday sitting in front of the local candy shop with a group of boys at whom
the school kids shout “Go to school, scumbags!” (34). There is an inner force which
catches Jem’s attention and makes her stare at the strange silent boy through the bus
window, until one day,
As usual, none of the boys even bothered to look at the bus. Jem was
staring at Ricky; the bus took the gravel road at such a crawl it wasn’t
hard to spend some time looking. He was hunched up, black hair stiff
with grease falling over his face. Then, for the first time ever, she saw his
face turn, parting the curtain of his hair, and recognition shook her. She’d
expected eyes that had seen violence and death… But his eyes were
steady, drawing her into their gaze. (35)
Jem here is so amazed by Ricky’s gaze that she starts to associate him with the
“demigods and fabulous beasts” of her ancient mythology class. She identifies him with
her favorite mythic creature whose “upper parts [are] those of a boy, the lower those of
33
Said, Edward. Reflections on Exile and Other Literary and Cultural Essays. London: Granta, 2001.
145
a goat. It played pipes, haunting the forest with music that was a thing of the heart of the
body rather than the ears” (35).
Abu-Jaber here makes reference to Greek mythology through relating Ricky to
satyrs, the mythological creatures who are part man and part goat. Described as the
“spirits of the woodland,” they were “fond of wine and women. They were the
attendants of Dionysus” (Ellis 1895: 125), the god of wine. Moreover, “they seemed to
personify the unrestrained fertility of Nature in the wild; and what they particularly
enjoyed was pursuing the nymphs, on whom they hoped to gratify their lust” (Grant and
Hazel, 297). The animal attributes of satyrs reflect the way in which these creatures
embody the wild forces of nature, in addition to their wicked reputation due to their
passion towards females. This image seems to be compatible with Ricky’s character; he
is depicted as mysterious, wild and also fond of Jem. In addition to that, the girl could
stand for the figure of Antiope, the wife of Lycus, king of Thebes, who was seduced by
Zeus, disguised as a satyr.
As we can see, Jem’s romantic depiction of Ricky reveals that, like Antiope, the
girl is seduced by this mysterious boy. This attraction translates Jem’s identification
with him as she is the one at whom children shout and tease inside the school bus, while
he is her counterpart outside the vehicle. Therefore, both of them coincide in being the
subject of children’s hostility and mockery, which makes Jem feel solidarity with the
boy despite the absence of any kind of conversation between them. It is interesting to
note here that both characters interact on the margin of ethnic boundaries. Jem and
Ricky have a hybrid background, and both are orphans, since Ricky’s father has blown
himself up trying to supercharge a car at a gas station. In both cases, it is the American
half of the parentage which has died prematurely. This ironically seems to be, in a way,
self-inflicted, through inattention. Thus, violence and sudden loss seem to have inflicted
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the initial subjective wound on both characters’ process of progressive identification. In
this context, Ricky “had too many stepmothers; he was dumped by his father’s absence,
by years of aimlessness and television” (Abu-Jaber1993: 167).
Paradoxically, we learn later that the whole story of the father’s loss is actually
an invented one, “Ricky Ellis, the homeless boy, the orphan boy. He smiled because
he’d made it all up. His father had survived, ridiculously, several bouts of drinking toxic
chemicals. His mother was long gone” (272-73). In fact, it is Ricky’s Indian mother
who has actually disappeared. It seems that he intentionally intends to eradicate the
image of his American father from his life through hiding his survival. The denial of the
American father’s existence is actually a denial of his American half, which reflects the
complexity of the ethnic boundaries situation where Ricky finds himself.
Ten years later, Jem meets again the “one-time disturber of her dreams” (275)
after finishing school. This time, it is not in front of the candy shop but in the town’s
garage where he temporarily works as an attendant; and immediately complicity
between them comes to the surface again. Slipping back at first into their old habit of
exchanging glances, they then start to exchange words, and go on to meet quietly in
Jem’s car or in the fields. They become lovers. Just like the faun she has dreamed about
as a child, Ricky emerges from the woods behind the Ramouds’ house where “he had
watched her, settling himself among the leaves and mossy earth by the house, more
often than she would ever guess” (275). After their first encounter, he finds the young
woman on the lawn of her house and “he walked up through the fields, and laid his head
in Jem’s lap. He did it without speaking, and Jem let him” (156). He tells her how much
he has missed her and then starts singing,
The sound was eerie, elegiac, climbing the bones of her legs back to her
spine, the song bound the rhythm of weeping… What was remarkable
about this singing was the purity of his voice, going true to every note
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and giving it flight. The sound of a faun, Jem thought, or panpipes. She’d
never heard anything like it before. (156)
Jemorah is seduced and even enchanted by Ricky’s. Not only does she perceive him as
a mythological creature but also as the projection of her romantic dreams.
As we can see, these two characters made invisible in their community find a
source of comfort in the way they identify with one another. Thus, interaction and
solidarity between the young Arab American woman and the half-Indian man forms a
kind of interethnic communalism as both of them are subject of marginalization within
their community, in Euclid. As Salaita points out, “although they never solidify a
relationship, their intercourse symbolizes the entrance of one ethnic movement into the
fold of another. The intercommunication provides comfort amid surroundings where
Arab and Indian are often represented as being subhuman” (2001: 436).
Hence, the interaction between Jem and Ricky illustrates Abu-Jaber’s
transcendence of ethnic boundaries through the creation of a minority discourse where
not only do Arab Americans take part but also interact with other marginalized
characters. On the one hand, the writer aims to reinforce her narrative within its
American context by means of this interethnic communalism, which is in harmony with
Arab American scholars’ tendency to cross ethnic lines and communicate with other
communities of color in the United States as a strategy to reinforce their own position as
a group. This identification is well expressed by Ricky when he tells Jemorah the
following:
“… I guess that’s how I love you, not knowing, just the way you were up
there riding that school bus[…] You were the first person who saw me. I
mean… I mean when you looked at me, I could feel it.” He moved close
to her and put his fingers on the nape of her neck under her hair, and she
shivered. They shut their eyes together. “Tell me you still see me,” he
said, his voice descending to a whisper. (203)
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The silent boy is given voice here, which allows him to reveal his feelings about the
invisibility forced on him and how Jemorah has been the first to recognize him as an
ordinary human being and also to become interested in him as a man. And thus, Ricky
and Jem, sharing the status of outcasts in the community, find refuge in each other.
On the other hand, Abu-Jaber uses the intercourse between these two characters
in order to make an analogy between Palestinians and Native Americans. She explains
that she “was searching for a long time for a metaphor for Palestinians that Americans
could grasp in a visceral way,” taking into account that “this country can tend to be so
isolated and so muffled from what’s happening outside of its borders.” That’s why she
realizes that “the experiences of Native Americans were similar to what was happening
to Palestinians, the way they were slowly phased out or pushed back, how there were
moments of violence, but that native peoples were always constituted as savages and
barbarians” (Evans 1996: 47-48). Hence, the writer draws attention to the similarities
between the United States and Israel as colonial settler societies where European settler
populations have gradually conquered their respective territories through the exercise of
power to subdue and control the indigenous populations.
Therefore, Abu-Jaber intends to shed light on the violent displacement of
indigenous peoples in order to make room for immigrants which took place in the
United States, and which is still happening in Israel. Through this analogy, she contests
the American position vis-à-vis the Arab-Israeli conflict in the Middle East consisting
of full support for Israel at the expense of the Palestinians’ right to their own land. More
importantly, she places Native Americans as colonized subjects in a country created out
of a colonial settler society so as to draw attention to the current condition of the
Palestinian people. In other words, the writer tries to implicitly explain the nature of this
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kind of conflict and in this way inspire the American reader’s compassion towards
Palestinians.
From the other side, Ricky’s association with Euclid’s working-class community
keeps him trapped in this stagnant town. He knows that he has no chance to leave for a
new life as he is doomed to remain frozen in Euclid’s “Absolute Present Tense” (AbuJaber 1993: 268). However, taking into account Jem’s more stable middle-class
situation and her ethnic background, he comes to the conclusion that something about
her “made him know he did not belong with her” (167). He thinks that, unlike him, she
is more likely to move forward and make a new life somewhere else. While he feels
“the need to rise out of his life,” he cannot do anything because he “could not
understand himself. He’d had too many stepmothers; he was numbed by his father’s
absence, by years of aimlessness and television” (167). He seems to be forced into
motionlessness, which is physically symbolized by his job, “Flat on his back under a car
chassis looking into metal mazes, he could lose himself between the floor and the
engine” (167).
Then, Ricky admits that the only way he and Jem can be together is when she
remains in Euclid, which means that he would have to transmit his state of immobility
to her. However, he knows that this is impossible as “Someday, he believed, she would
wake from the house inside the trees, that house banked in bushes, weeds, and dark
windows” (167). Once more, Abu-Jaber makes use of fairy tales in order to illustrate her
characters’ experiences and provide an insight into their behavior. In this case, she
refers to Jemorah as Sleeping Beauty falling into a state of a long deep sleep in her
castle. Nevertheless, Ricky, standing for the Prince figure here, wishes to keep the
princess asleep under his charm, as
If he breathed very quietly, though, touched her with the lightest fingers,
if he sang to her, he thought, she might sink deeper into her sleep, the
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sleep of Euclid. Perhaps she would stay with him, though he felt, deeper
inside, that she would someday leave. (167)
Abu-Jaber here compares staying in Euclid to a curse whose effect is being forever
trapped in a place lacking any sign of change and doomed to paralysis and stagnation.
In fact, Ricky’s intuition turns out to be true because Jem realizes that her
boyfriend has no chance of leaving Euclid, which is not her case. She thinks that,
She couldn’t find a life here with Ricky Ellis, his job at a gas station, her
work in a business office. She couldn’t hide in Euclid and disappear…
She wanted more; after so many years of holding back, losing herself in
dreams. Her mother had left before she could show Jem where her place
might be. Jem averted her eyes as if her sadness clung to the windshield.
She would not let herself vanish. She would live. (299)
The reader is led to think that her decision is going to be strengthened by the two letters
she finds later that day in the mailbox. The first one concerns her admission to the
Department of Psychology of Stanford University, and the second contains a twentyfive-thousand-dollar check from her Jordanian uncle Fouad to cover her first year at
University. However, in a demonstration of her deep ambivalence, she unexpectedly
expresses her desire to fulfill her aunt’s wish to marry her cousin Nassir and “go back
with him to live in Jordan” (307). To the surprise of her family members and even her
husband-to-be cousin, she explains that,
I’m tired to fight it out here. I don’t have much idea of what it is to be
Arab, but that’s what the family is always saying we are. I want to know
what part of me is Arab. I haven’t figured out what part is our mother,
either. It’s like she abandoned us, left us alone to work it all out. (307-08)
Jemorah, here, voices her failure to find a home in America without her mother’s
presence.
In this way, Abu-Jaber reveals Jem’s passiveness in the sense that she depends
on others to define who she is. On the one hand, she is Arab because she is defined by
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her family as such, and on the other, she complains about her mother’s early death
which has prevented her from enjoying her American part. Therefore, Jem intends to
put an end to her struggle to find a balance and understand her hyphen. She explains her
decision through the alienation she feels in America. She says that
Things are changing for me. I’ve started to see better, like the way I don’t
fit in. I haven’t put together a life. I’m still living at home, I’ve been
working at a job I hate. I’m so tired of being a child, being good, wanting
people to like me. They don’t like Arabs. (327-28)
Jemorah here complains that her American side of the hyphen has been constantly
denied to her, which has added much trouble to her journey in search of who she is. She
comes to the conclusion that “You’ve got to seem right” (328) to be considered
American. She thinks that she doesn’t look right, so she gives it all up and chooses
Jordan as her home.
However, Melvina thoroughly disagrees with her sister and gives her instead a
lecture about Americanness:
Americans don’t like anybody! Americans don’t like Americans! […]
And what are we talking about, you are an American. Where do you
think Americans come from, when they’re not captured on reservations?
They come from other places. That’s what an American is. (328)
Hence, Melvina declares herself, and therefore her sister and her family, to be
American. She states that they are not less Americans than the others as she refers to the
essence of America, the nation of emigrants. Nevertheless, Abu-Jaber intends to
152tress the ambivalence of this myth about America where probably only white people
“seem right.” Moreover, she makes reference to the struggle undergone by hyphenated
individuals to grasp a place for themselves within America’s multicultural space. In this
way, she insists on the Americanness of her community and, therefore, takes a step
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further towards the blending of Arab-Americanness in order to enhance its presence in
its American context.
Returning to Jem’s decision, the girl shows once more her persistent dependence
on others to work it out for her. She wants to go to Jordan because it is where her
mother has died. Realizing that, her cousin Nassir tries to open her eyes:
“But I think, maybe, you believe that because she died overseas that
there’s still some part of your mother, perhaps her soul, remaining in
Jordan, waiting for you to come back again. Perhaps the home you’re
thinking of is in your mother’s arms.”
Jem rose, walked to the kitchen door, and tipped her forehead lightly to
the screen. The air through the screen was cool and black, coming, it
seemed, for great distances, the flesh of night shifting, great and lovely
and empty.
“Because, dear, if that’s what you feel, I have to tell you, I don’t think
you’ll find her there,” he said.
“No,” Jem said. “Of course not.” (340)
It is at this moment that Jem finally realizes that Nassir is right and that her mother is
not in Jordan anymore, nor anywhere else. She is really and truly dead. It is definitely
the first time that Jemorah sees the truth clearly and understands that she has to accept
it. It has been a long time since her mother’s loss, so she has to face life and depend on
herself.
Therefore, Jem shifts from one extreme decision to another when she makes up
her mind once more to give up the idea of moving to Jordan and stay in America. She
wants not only to get out of her inner world, but also out of the hospital’s walls, to leave
Euclid and get access to the real world:
She didn’t think she would ever live there. The house looked strange as a
shipwreck in a sea of country fields and telephone wires threading Euclid
to the rest of the world. It could be for Matussem a private home, a place
to create his life. But she has recognized […] the mystery of this hate,
something she could crack only by going into it: back to school. (362)
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Jem decides, then, to move to California so as to pursue a degree course at Stanford
University. She chooses America as her home in order to try to come to an end with her
identity negotiation and her double sense of belonging. This quick and unexpected shift
from one extreme position to another reveals, actually, that she has not really resolved
her ambivalence. However, the definitive burial of Jem’s mother in her mind has
provided her with a fresh start as she decides to give America an opportunity to be the
stage for her identity negotiation with the objective of reaching the point of being able
to enjoy her transcultural identity.
Arabian Jazz (1993) therefore conveys Abu-Jaber’s efforts to contribute to the
“creation of a new culture that draws on both Arab and American contexts and
identities” (Majaj 1994: 74). Making of hybridity the center of her narrative discourse,
she gives us the possibility of looking into the multilayered identities of her Arab
American female characters, and sheds light on the making of the Arab American
female identity which is presented as a continuously negotiable conception of the self.
3.2 West of the Jordan
This novel presents a collection of female characters whose stories reflect the
heterogeneity of Arab American women and the multiplicity of their experiences. Laila
Halaby offers us the narratives of four teenage maternal cousins of Palestinian origin
who undergo different experiences of displacement. The novel gives voice to these
teenage girls as it assigns them the task of narrating the chapters and relating not only
their own stories, but also the stories of many other people with different ages and
backgrounds. This is “the way they tell their stories: slow and tasty… not rushing”
(Halaby 2003: 1). Accordingly, the chapters emerge as first-person narratives of these
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females cousins told in a cycle of voices, which makes reference to The Joy Luck Club
(1989) by the Chinese American writer Amy Tan. The similarities between both novels
make us think about the short-story cycle, which has become a popular literary genre
amongst ethnic minority writers from different backgrounds. In an intimate tone, each
narrator in Halaby’s novel introduces the reader to her own world and presents insights
into her daily experiences as well as into her perception of life, home and many other
themes. Each chapter is the site where the protagonists expose their identities-in-themaking, whether as Arab or Arab American women, taking into account the multiplicity
of their personal, cultural and economic conditions and circumstances.
In spite of the diversity of the four cousins’ experiences, they all find themselves
in a Third Space where they struggle to find a place of their own in the Palestinian
diaspora. Their location is what Homi Bhabha calls “the moment of transit where space
and time cross to produce complex figures of difference and identity” (1994: 145).
Hence, in my analysis, I will trace the negotiation process that each teenage narrator has
adopted during her journey of self-identification both in America and in Palestine. In
this way, I will examine how these girls perform their multiple cultural identities. In
fact, as Steven Salaita states, “although each narrator’s personality is distinct, they all
share the presence of Palestine as a crucial source of their identities” (2011: 80). In this
context, Mawal is the only cousin who still lives in the family’s ancestral town of
Nawara on the West Bank, in the occupied Palestinian territories, and who has never
been to the United States. The other three – Soraya, Khadija and Hala – have to find
their way in their American context.
Despite their common cultural background, the girls are going through totally
different experiences, which conveys the writer’s intention to challenge the widespread
depiction of Arab women as homogeneous in mainstream American imaginary. In this
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sense, Halaby’s novel does away with stereotypical portrayals of Arab women as static
and helpless submissive beings, and does this through the freshness of her young
protagonists. These teenagers, in fact, stand for thousands of young girls who represent
the new generations of Palestinian and Palestinian American women and whose stories
are an essential component of the memory of Palestine. Therefore, we can detect the
writer’s interest in the diasporic constituent of the four cousins’ experiences whether in
America or in the Palestinian homeland. Mawal does not share her cousins’ hyphenated
identities because she does not have to cross cultural borders between Palestine and
America. Nonetheless, she is equally displaced due to the nature of the geopolitical
reality of the Palestinian territories under Israeli military occupation, and hence, the
writer’s decision to study her situation too.
3.2.1 Mawal: The Memory of Palestine
Among the interesting characters that Laila Halaby presents in her novel is
Mawal, the Palestinian teenager who, unlike her cousins, has never left the family’s
ancestral village of Nawara. Although my dissertation focuses on the study of hybrid
characters straddling their double heritage, I would argue that the character of Mawal is
very important, as she allows the reader to see into the lives of the ones left behind, the
ones who have not had the opportunity to make it whether to the United States or
somewhere else. Not only are we invited to share the girl’s experiences in Palestine, but
also to explore the stories of the people of Nawara. Mawal’s narrative allows us, as
well, to have another perspective concerning her cousins’ diasporic experiences.
Steven Salaita describes Mawal as a “metaphorical anchor, the culturally
grounded, responsible keeper of stories” (2011: 80). The narrator demonstrates this
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from the second chapter, significantly entitled “Nawara,” and which is to a large extent
dedicated to pay tribute to the village. She says, “Our village is called Nawara, which
means flowers or blossoms. When you say it, Naw-waar-a, a hillside of small white
wildflowers comes to mind, or the fragrant new blossoms on an orange or almond tree”
(15). Mawal here expresses her affection for her village using this imagery which
addresses the senses of sight and smell. Hence, the readers who are not familiar with the
Arabic language can see the flowers and smell their fragrance every time they come
across the name of the village, Nawara.
Mawal refers to her village as a magical place full of beauty and colors. She then
explains how embroidery contributes to Nawara’s uniqueness,
Our village is an island, famous for beautiful embroidered dresses that
we call rozas while most everyone else calls them thobes, and yet
surrounded by villages that do not embroider at all. The complicated
embroidery on our rozas – with both Palestinian and western stitches and
patterns – captures the spirit of Nawara. (15)
Mawal proudly highlights her village’s embroidery tradition and exclusive rozas that
she baptizes as the symbol of Nawara. Halaby focuses on embroidery as a representative
of Palestinian cultural heritage and traditions. The continuity of this handicraft means
the survival of the memory of Palestine which has been suffering for decades from
Israeli attempts to eradicate and deny its existence, and consequently, the existence of
Palestinians as a people struggling for its right to self-determination. In this way,
stitching can be considered an act of resistance and a reclaiming of Palestinians’
collective memory.
It is relevant to make a connection here with the story of Penelope in Homer’s
Odyssey. While her husband was away for twenty years during and after the Trojan
War, she spent her time weaving in order to stay faithful to him and to dissuade her
suitors. Penelope used her weaving as a means to tell her story and to exercise control
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over her own destiny. Barbara Walker indicates that Penelope’s web is “a sign of
protection like the simple pentacle, made even more suggestively defensive by the ring
of twenty outward facing points, and the lines of connection drawing all sections
together in the center, as a unifying cause or concept draws people together for the
preservation of all” (72). In this way, her weaving work succeeded to protect her
husband “with her refusal to cut the thread of life, who preserved the life of her husband
Odysseus through his many adventures” (72). Instead of cutting the thread she just
unwove her work every night. Thus, Penelope’s story shows women’s determination to
be the mistresses of their destiny and also to overcome all the obstacles that come on
their way. This is why, weaving has been associated to women’s experiences and
history, together with the safeguard of traditions and the collective memory.
In this way, Mawal takes an active part in preserving the memory of Palestine,
first because she is an embroiderer herself, and second because she is the keeper of the
village women’s stories. The girl says that “so many women come to spill their secrets
and their joys and their agonies because they know my mother – and I – will keep them
safe and do no more than stitch them into the fabric of our rozas” (17). Hence, she
makes a close connection between stories and embroidery because she actually stitches
the experiences of all of these women:
Stitch in red for life.
Stitch in green to remember.
Stitch, stitch to never forget. (103)
These stories, unknown to her American cousins, are Mawal’s contribution to recording
and preserving Palestinian memory. Indeed, the two colors used here – red and green –
correspond to the Palestinian flag, making rozas and stories components of Palestinian
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national identity. For instance, in the year 2008, in the 50th anniversary of al Nakba,34
“names of vanished villages were recalled and embroidered into tapestries that were
exhibited around the world.”35
In addition, some of Israel’s efforts to deny and erase the identity and history of
Palestine can be perceived in banning of the Palestinian flag and its colors in Israel and
the recently occupied territories including the West Bank and Gaza after the 1967 ArabIsraeli war. The occupation authority outlawed any display of Palestinian national
symbols to such an extent that in the eighties even Palestinian art exhibitions and
paintings started to be considered a threat for their political significance. In this context,
In this context, the Palestinian artist and historian Kamal Boullata states that exhibitions
organized by the League of Palestinian Artists, created in 1973, “constituted a new form
of political resistance.” He explains that “because Palestinian art was an expression of
collective identity, Israeli authorities began to impose military censorship on all
exhibitions. Even the combined use of the four colors that made up the Palestinian flag
was banned.” Boullata says that “unauthorized exhibitions were stormed by troops, with
the public ordered to leave and paintings confiscated” (87).36 Moreover, during the first
Intifada (1987 – 1993),37 young Palestinian activists were arrested by Israeli soldiers for
waving sliced watermelon, which displayed, the four colors of the Palestinian flag.
34
Al Nakba means disaster or catastrophe in Arabic. It is the term used in Palestine and the Arab World
to refer to the events which led to the creation of the State of Israel in 1948 and the subsequent
dispossession and displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinian people.
35
Andoni, Lamis. “Palestinian Memory Cannot Be Erased.” Al Jazeera. July 11, 2008.
< http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2008/05/200861516588274237.html>
Boullata, Kamal. “Art.” Encyclopedia of the Palestinians: Revised Edition. Ed. Philip
Mattar. New York: Facts on File, 2005.
37
The First Intifada was a grassroots movement of popular uprising against Israeli rule which took place
in the occupied territories from 1987 to 1993. In his book entitled The Politics of Dispossession (1995),
Edward Said states that this “was surely one of the great anticolonial insurrections of the modern period”
(xxvii).
36
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Therefore, Israeli occupation’s attempts to confine Palestinian symbols were met
by a rising consciousness and a determination to record traditions and prevent their
disappearance. That’s why embroidered costumes, among other traditions, are being reinvigorated as the symbols of the Palestinian past and culture. Embroidered women’s
garments not only express regional identity but most importantly national Palestinian
identity. As Iman Saca states,
despite the political and economic difficulties, however, women in the
refugee camps, mainly in Jordan and Lebanon, continued to embroider in
the style of their original villages in an attempt to maintain their
displaced identity. By continuing the tradition of embroidery and wearing
traditional dresses, women felt that in their own way they were keeping
part of their heritage and village alive. (15)38
In the same way, Shelagh Weir highlights women’s efforts to preserve cultural heritage
and promote it to younger generations. She points out how
despite their hardships and dislocations, many women of village origin,
including those still living in their villages in the West Bank, and those
living in refugee camps in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and Jordan, still
wear embroidered dresses and flowing white veils, either for everyday
wear or for special occasions. This not only includes the older women,
who might be expected to be more conservative in dress and cling more
tenaciously to village styles, but also younger women, many of whom
have not lived in a village since they were children, or have never done
so. (272)39
Accordingly, West of the Jordan (2003) conveys Halaby’s celebration of
Palestinian traditions as she sheds light on the rich language of Palestinian costume and
artifacts on the one hand, and on the other, tries to reaffirm the country’s culture, on the
other. In this way, the novel emphasizes how “‘traditional’ women’s costume and
embroidery have certainly acquired a new political significance as expressions of
Palestinian national identity” (Weir 1989: 273). Therefore, these women’s pride of their
38
Saca, Iman. Embroidering Identities: A Century of Palestinian Clothing. Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 2006.
39
Weir, Shelagh. Palestinian Costume. London: British Museum Publications Ltd, 1989.
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village costumes has become a kind of political activism. In this way, Weir explains that
these garments
have not only become an increasingly self-conscious statement of their
own Palestinian identity and their national aspirations, but are also, in
various modifications, performing the same task on behalf of Palestinians
generally, whatever their place of residence, social background or usual
modes of attire” (273).
Taking into account the context of Palestinian society which has been the victim of
systematic dispossession and fragmentation under the Israeli occupation for decades, an
interest in preserving culture and tradition has become a priority, and therefore, “intense
efforts are made […] to study, preserve, and reproduce what comes to be defined as the
‘national heritage’” (Weir 1989: 273). Embroidery, as part of material culture and
displaying visual symbols, plays then a crucial role as it embodies the continuity of
Palestinian presence from the past to the present. In fact, culture is one of the arguments
which can be used to contest Zionist claims denying the very existence of a Palestinian
people, and hence, denying its rights to the land of Palestine. Therefore, culture has a
close and direct connection with identity, whether individual or collective. In this sense,
“a true identity implies continuity; it evokes ancestors and heirs, the dead and the as yet
unborn” (Berger 2009: 16).40
In this novel, Mawal is the heir who is in charge of ensuring the survival of these
traditions, and hence, of the continuity of Palestinian national identity. Through the
girl’s embroidery, Halaby focuses on the importance of memory and the act of stitching
as a means to remember. Homi Bhabha argues that “Remembering is never a quiet act
of introspection or retrospection. It is a painful re-membering, a putting together of the
dismembered past to make sense of the trauma of the present” (1994: 90). Thus, Mawal
who has never left the ancestral village in the occupied territories conveys the
40
Berger, John. Preface: Concerning Identity. Palestinian Art: From 1850 to the Present. By Kamal
Boullata. Beirut: Saqi, 2009.
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Palestinians’ attachment to their land. She “serves as the other three characters’ foil in
that she reminds them of what they once were and what they were close to becoming”
(Salaita 2011: 80).
In this sense, Mawal relates in her narrative the drama of emigration as she
refers to the constantly increasing number of young men forced to leave Nawara as a
consequence of the economic and political hardships caused by occupation. She focuses
on America as a main destination chosen by Palestinians in their quest for opportunities.
She says that “Nawara could have a smaller version of herself in the United States,
which is like an army calling all able-bodied young men away and then never returning
their bodies” (Halaby 2003: 15). Through this image, the teenager tries to convey the
fact that Nawara’s young men are trapped between two armies: the Israeli occupation
forces and America. While the former deports, detains and kills, the last steals them
away and keeps them to live there. Mawal displays her disapproval of emigration when
she states, “you would think our village was in love with America with all the people
who left, like America is the best relative in the world that everyone has to visit.
America is more like a greedy neighbor who takes the best of you and leaves you
feeling empty” (96).
Consequently, although most young Palestinians think that they are only
sojourners who will go back home once they earn enough money, they end up settling
in America for good. Mawal’s grandmother tells her that “very few men came back at
all, or if they did they couldn’t stay, as I’m sure you know by the number of cousins you
have who don’t live here” (98). As a result, these men leave behind “many women here
grieving over sons and husbands who have forgotten them, or grieving over the evils
that country [America] has introduced their sons to, like drugs and drinking and loose
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women and gambling” (15). However, it seems that money is “the good that has come
from all the leaving” (96).
Hence, according to Mawal, America is the land which has been taking the best
of Nawara’s children. This is why, in some parts of her narrative, she expresses her
belief that, in contrast to her cousins, she is privileged to live in Nawara. Once, after
listening to a story related by her grandmother, she realizes the importance of the legacy
she is receiving. She says: “I tuck this story into my pocket wishing I could stitch it into
my skin, like one of the Bedouin tattoos my grandmother wears. Are there stories like
this in lovely, tempting America? Do my cousins there even know these little histories?
I doubt it” (103). Therefore, it seems that stories, just like tattoos, last forever. In other
words, Mawal can be considered a reference for the wide range of stories which record
the lives of the people of Nawara, whether the ones living in the homeland or elsewhere.
In Mawal’s case, these stories are like traditions passed down from mother to daughter
and from grandmother to granddaughter. She also has the opportunity to listen at first
hand to many stories from the concerned women who usually come to her house to
relate their pains. She explains that “because I was always by mother’s side, people
came to think of us as one, or as sisters, more than as mother and daughter, which is
why women are not shy to pour out their troubles when I am in the room” (16). Hence,
Mawal’s narrative gives voice to these grieving women of Nawara as she tells their
histories and painful experiences.
Mawal tells the story of her aunt Huda, her cousin Hala’s mother, which could
be entitled “Big-mouth village. Sad love-story girl” (21). Huda joins her brother Hamdi
in Arizona where he is studying at university. “Against the advice of the entire village”
(20), her father decides to give his smart daughter the opportunity to study abroad in
order to earn a degree. He says that “there is nothing wrong with letting a girl learn as
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much as a boy does” (21). However, Huda’s stay in America has been quite brief due to
a rumor that has circulated in the village in a few hours about her supposed
misbehavior. She meets a young man from Jerusalem studying in the same university as
her and they start a relationship. So once, one of her brother’s fellow students from
Nawara calls “his gossipy mother” back in the village and tells her that Huda has spent
the night with her boyfriend:
he told her something like: I am fine and I see Hamdi Salaama a fair
amount, and his sister, of course. Yes, she’s studying. Well, she’s really
not so good. If you’ll keep this to yourself, I’ll tell you. Promise, Yama?
Well, she’s not so proper and last night she didn’t come home at all. Why
indeed? She was spending the night at her boyfriend’s house. (21)
Consequently, Huda’s father asks Hamdi to send his sister back home or he will disown
her. Her parents realize later that she was “telling the truth, and the liar boy denied he
had ever said anything, but by then it was too late and Huda was back here” (21).
Therefore, gossip has put an end to Huda’s ambitions and her longing for a different
future. “It was no surprise that shortly after her return she was married to an older
Jordanian man and left Nawara forever” (21). This “big-mouth village” has not only
provoked Huda’s return in disgrace, but also her forced marriage to an old foreigner.
As I have mentioned earlier, the village people have not approved since the very
beginning the fact that a young woman goes abroad to pursue university studies,
perceiving it as a challenge to their society’s codes. These values reduce women to the
status of submissiveness and dependence on men, and expect them to perform a role in
accordance with the conservative traditions. They are unable to envision a woman as the
mistress of her own destiny. These kinds of people do not miss the first opportunity to
reduce to ash the dreams of any woman who thinks of challenging the system, and this
is exactly what has happened to Huda. In addition to lies which have destroyed her
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reputation and her academic and professional future, marriage has definitely stamped on
her dreams of freedom and of leading a different life.
Mawal is obviously aware of her aunt’s disgrace, which is why she wants to
avoid sharing the same fate. She does not want to be one of the victims of this “bigmouth village” of Nawara. She is aware of her condition as an Arab girl living in an
Arab village where gossip is the main entertainment practiced. One of the favorite
topics is certainly girls’ honor and degree of conformity with the imposed rules.
Nevertheless, Mawal sometimes shows her desire to do away with these restrictions
imposed on women, and to enjoy the freedom of experimenting love, feelings and
instincts. In this sense, she says: “I want to be mischievous … to stand this much closer
to the vegetable man who winks, to let him touch my hand when he gives me back my
change” (19). However, she has been taught that she has to suppress this kind of
supposedly immoral feeling, because these teachings are perpetuated from mother to
daughter:
My mother has led me to believe that feelings and thoughts such as these
will take me straight to hell, or make me turn out like my untame cousin
Soraya, who ate too much cereal when she was young and has the
foolishness of an American in her blood, and that may be true but I don’t
much care. I want to sit in the garden and hike my dress up to my knees
so my legs can feel the sun as it kisses them. (19)
As I have explained earlier in my analysis of Arabian Jazz (1993), religion
continues to give shape to social and gender structures in many parts of the Arab world,
and this village is no exception. The fusion of religion and traditions controls gender
relations, and consequently, imposes oppressive models at the expense of women. The
previous excerpt clearly exposes this use of religion in order to repress women’s
sexuality. In addition, she refers to her Palestinian American cousin Soraya, who
Mawal’s mother considers loose and degenerate because she has grown up away from
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the reach of the homeland’s patriarchal constraints on women. In fact, she considers her
niece as just a foolish American. However, Mawal does not seem to care much about
her mother’s perception of Soraya, which may be explained by a slight feeling of envy
when she thinks about the degree of freedom that her cousin is enjoying in America.
Hence, Mawal reveals here her hidden desire for freedom, as the very fact of thinking
about it brings her joy and satisfaction.
In my opinion, Mawal seems to be trying to find a balance between her society’s
values and her own dreams. She is portrayed as an obedient Arab daughter who does
not have any intention to challenge gender roles. She is even aware that her future
depends on what her parents decide. Naturally, marriage figures in her future plans, but
she thinks “that’s all still some time away, though. I still have to finish high school, and
then, if my parents will allow me, I want to go to college and become a teacher like
Miss Maryam, who teaches English and classical Arabic” (17). Moreover, she wants to
avoid being the subject of gossip in the village because she cares about her reputation as
a woman, which may explain her hiding of what she considers as her inclination to be
malicious and defiant. She knows that this kind of behavior goes against what she has
been taught to be appropriate conduct by girls.
Therefore, although she is apparently in conformity with these traditions and she
has never put these thoughts into practice, I think that she has her own ambitions of
finishing her studies and working. In this way, due to all the stories she has been
listening to, she dreams of a fate different from that of Nawara’s women. These stories
definitely have an important impact on the forging of the girl’s personality. She seems
to negotiate a balance between her ambitions and her society’s gender structure so as to
avoid the fate of all of these women with unfulfilled dreams, like her aunt Huda, who
“was the first Nawarese girl dragged by marriage across the river Jordan, but not the
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last” (47). She explains that, “as life gets harder, more fathers are willing to release their
daughters to a different world” (47). It means that they marry their daughters off to
Jordanian men, which signifies leaving Palestine forever. Mawal says that soon after,
these girls’ “mothers come and weep and lick their wounds in my mother’s house” (47).
One of these grieving mothers is Farah which means “Joy. Surely her father
cursed her by giving her that name. One whose name means joy could only know
misery” (50). Her sad story reveals the series of hardships undergone by many
Palestinian women. At the age of sixteen, she is forced into marriage to an older man
“who gave her two children and fists that pounded her with welts to cover her body,
welts she ignored or covered” (51). She receives her father’s support to get rid of this
violent husband, as he makes him grant her a divorce. However, her father tells her “you
will marry again,” and forces her into another marriage because “there is no freedom for
a divorced woman with two children” (51). After three years, her second husband dies
and leaves her with two more babies to feed. Once more, her father tells her “you will
marry again,” and she gets married for the third time, this being the only solution for “a
blackened widow back in her parents’ house, with four giant mouths to feed” (51).
As a woman, Farah has to depend on a man to survive and to provide a living for
her kids. She has no choice because as long as her father decides everything, she has to
obey his will. Hence, she has to remain always under control and obey the authority of a
man, whether a father or a husband. As Amal Talaat Abdelrazek writes:
Due to financial problems and scarcity of men who either get killed by
Israeli forces or who escape from this fate by immigrating to the United
States, Arab fathers seize the opportunity when they find a suitable
husband for their daughters, even if it means they will have to marry
older men whom the daughters do not know. (136)41
41
Abdelrazek, Amal Talaat. Contemporary Arab American Women Writers: Hyphenated Identities and
Border Crossing. New York: Cambria Press, 2007. Print
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Farah thus stands for many Palestinian women confined by their patriarchal society as
they are “taught to accept every agony as God’s fate and bury their ache because they
cannot protest God’s will” (Abdelrazek 2007: 136). For these women, “there was no
way to change [anything], just accept God’s will and teach yourself rigidity. Teach
yourself to keep all the pain in one small corner inside” (Halaby 2005: 48-49).
Therefore, Farah has learnt to repress her pain and accept suffering, because no
alternative is available either for her or for the next generation. In fact, her nineteenyear-old daughter endures the same fate as she is forced into marriage with an older
Jordanian man. Farah, however, cannot contain her tears when she thinks about her
daughter. Even the few times she visits her child in the other bank of the river Jordan,
she is forced to go through the humiliations inflicted on Palestinians on a daily basis. In
this way, Halaby takes the reader to Israeli occupation forces checkpoints where
Palestinians are subject to ignominious treatment. Farah “waited, waited with all the
other women who were crossing the bridge, going home, envying the foreigners who
could cross from another spot with nothing more than a stamped paper for their
passports” (48). Farah thinks that they are
really waiting to spread their legs for the enemy, who … think old ladies
are the most dangerous because they wear the most clothes and have had
the most children; they could hide an entire village between their legs if
they wanted to.
Farah felt nothing as she took off her clothes all the way down to naked,
avoiding looking at her body… The women guards poked around with
rubber gloves and Farah felt nothing – no anger, nothing more than
tiredness. Such things were accepted as part of life, like that woman’s six
miscarriages… not pleasant, but unavoidable, God-given burdens. (49)
This extract obviously illustrates the fate of many Palestinian women with no options
for change as their very existence seems to be a burden. They are doomed to endure a
double sense of oppression: colonization and sexism. Hence, these gendered and
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political confinements imposed on women complicate their situation as they engender
displacement and alienation.
Farah’s story, however, is contrasted with that of the young woman she meets in
the collective cab on her way back from the frontier to the village. Actually, this
“woman and her children had crossed the bridge with the foreigners” (50). Farah looks
at her and is “surprised by how Arab her features were in contrast to her short curly hair
and her western clothes” (51). She tells Farah that she has lived in Puerto Rico for many
years until she decides to come back to Palestine. She explains that Puerto Rico is
“beautiful too, if you can close your eyes to the crime and the lack of morality” (52).
She adds, “that’s why I came back. How can I let my children grow up in a place where
girls are women at eleven years old and boys shoot real guns at each other at twelve?”
(52). Halaby is here speaking of another kind of experience involving, in this case, a
Palestinian woman who leaves Palestine to make a new life abroad and then decides to
bring her family back for good. Her decision is generated by her will to protect her
children and to ensure their upbringing according to her homeland’s cultural values, and
in order to cultivate Palestinian traditions.
Once again, the writer insists on the idea of the multiplicity of Palestinian
women’s experiences. Mawal gives the reader the opportunity to get into the lives of the
women left behind and also of those who decide to come back. Hence, the literary
device of this young teenager allows these women to have a space in the novel where
they can speak and express themselves. They can grow wings and fly away through the
space of the narrative where they are given voice to tell their stories. The mere act of
doing this allows them to release their pain and gain some kind of release. It gives them
the strength to continue and hence, to exist, thanks to the network of solidarity that has
been created around the embroidery rituals.
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3.2.2 Soraya: The Rebel
Born in Palestine, Soraya moves to the United States at an early age, where her
family settles down. I think she is a very interesting and special character who emerges
as an Arab American young woman aware of her hyphenated identity and struggling to
fit into the in-between space she lives in. She reveals her passionate and rebellious
personality from the very beginning of her narrative when she opens it with the
following sentence, “I have fire” (24). Soraya introduces herself to the reader in a tone
full of confidence and strength stating that, “everybody knows it. They see it in my
beautiful brown exotic eyes that I paint full of Maybelline kohl to turn my tears black”
(24). Soraya is portrayed as the opposite of Mawal, the good Arab girl. In this context,
she remarks that her “mother is disappointed that I am not a good daughter, but she
won’t admit that she has anything to do with it and says instead that I have a weak spirit
and have been ‘taken in by the lie that is America: freedom, freedom, freedom’” (2425).
Freedom is the key word that best describes Soraya’s spirit, which provokes
criticism and rejection of her behavior by her family to such an extent that her mother,
for instance, considers her almost an illness. She tells her daughter: “You are like labor
that never ends: pain everywhere all the time” (25). Soraya just does not care about
what her mother thinks because she wants to enjoy the freedom that America has
granted her. She explains, “I like to enjoy myself, unlike my sister Pauline who, despite
her American name, is very conservative and believes that all answers lie in God’s
words, and that suffering is good” (25). Therefore, she considers herself the opposite of
what her mother regards as right and suitable for a girl of her age. Moreover, she admits
that she is not conservative, nor religious, and that she does not believe that “suffering is
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good.” In this way, Soraya distances herself from the other female members of her
family and community. She resists her parents’ attempts to impose their Arab
homeland’s norms on her: once outside her family sphere she gets rid of all of these
restrictions and behaves like any other American teenager her age.
Soraya protests that “the older people all act the same way they did when they
were home, which isn’t fair in a lot of ways because we’re in America now, but they tell
us we are not supposed to be living an American life” (31). The girl’s links with Arab
culture are not so tight due to the fact that she has lived most of her life away from her
family’s homeland. But most importantly, unlike her sister and cousins, she does not
really want to accept the role and the behavior she is expected to have. A rebellious
teenager, she is determined to enjoy her American life when she is out from her
community’s reach.
One of the most revealing features about the girl’s rebellious nature, for
example, is that she is sexually active. Soraya is aware of her attractive body as she
says:
I have a skinny girl’s waist with woman hips and large breasts. I know
my body is sexy; I can tell by the way men look at me, by the way men
have always looked at me. I try to hide it in front of my family, and most
days I go to school early so I can change out of my loose pants and
elbow-length shirts into tighter clothes that make my body show more.
(30).
Therefore, under the pressure of traditional Arab norms of behavior, the teenager is
forced to live a double life. She is a sexy and exotic young lady who does what she
pleases to satisfy her desires when she is away from her family sphere, while she tries to
be discreet and respect Arab customs at home. However, the teenager is very critical of
many aspects of Arab culture especially concerning all restrictions preventing her from
behaving freely as any other American girl would.
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In this context, Soraya cannot understand the criticism she receives about her
way of dancing at celebrations. She says:
It always happens like this: when it comes for the women to dance, I put
them to shame. Even when I was little it happened like that. I don’t know
where it comes from, but they know it – it’s fire. They talk about how
bad I am, especially at weddings in the States, because I dance
shamelessly where men can see me and not just in front of women and a
camera. (29)
The girl is negatively judged for her dancing because on the dance floor she is
passionate and enthusiastic, and she really loves it. She dances in a way that challenges
Arab standards of behavior according to which women are supposed to dance discreetly
in public in order not to attract attention. However, Soraya does away with these norms
and lets the fire she has inside lead her body in its sensual hip movements, provoking
her mother’s shame, for instance. Dancing gives Soraya the opportunity to live a
multidimensional experience engendering a heightened awareness of bodily sensation
and subsequent emotions, a sense of freedom and of being one’s self, an ability to forget
everything else, a feeling of having access to a mystical or spiritual dimension, and also
a need to dance (Bond and Stinson, 52-87). In this respect, Amal Talaat Abdelrazek
explains that “dancing has been Soraya’s way of letting out her frustration as well as
expressing her joy, tasting her freedom, and rebelling against all restrictions imposed on
her by any kind of authority including her own mother and Arab culture… For her,
dancing creates an atmosphere of rave that inspires confidence and independence”
(141).
Hence, dancing provides the teenager with a sense of power and control over her
own body. Soraya uses her body as a weapon to challenge not only her family and
community, but also all the moral values she is told to follow. Moreover, she tells us
about one of her visits to Nawara when she dances at her grandmother’s house:
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Once I danced every night in a black slip with a candle burning in front
of a barred window that often had Israeli soldiers on the other side of it.
It was only a room in my grandmother’s house in boring little Nawara,
but hiz hiz hiz the way my feet taught my hips to follow the drumbeats, I
imagined I was an imprisoned princess and the man who watched me
from behind his gun was my evil captor. I would dance every night,
waiting for the heroic prince who would rescue me and love me until the
drumbeats stopped, which would be never. (Halaby 2003: 28)
This passage is very telling as it reveals Soraya’s perception of things. First of all,
dancing is the activity which allows her to defeat boredom in her little village back
home. It makes her grow wings and fly away through the walls of the room engaging
her in an ecstatic state of mind distracting her from all physical obstacles and
emphasizing her feeling of freedom. This feeling even makes her challenge the Israeli
soldier hidden behind his gun outside her window. She does not have any gun to face
him; she just has her body to assert that he cannot intimidate her. Her body is the proof
that she is alive and she is there. Even if she does not live in Nawara anymore, she still
belongs there.
On the other hand, this passage also displays how the girl feels imprisoned by
the restrictions imposed by her Arab background. She is looking for a way to set herself
free and get rid of the displacement she feels. The prince who would release her may be
whoever she will marry when she finishes high school in one year. Soraya is aware that
her mother is impatiently waiting to marry her off, and hence, get rid of the burden of
having what she considers a headache of a daughter. However, the teenager is aware
that she is the one who holds the key to her own salvation, and no man can do it for her,
which is why she cannot allow a set of traditions to prevent her from being happy. In
this sense, she does not understand her mother’s comments about her dancing when she
tells her that “it is not proper to behave like that, like a loose woman” (29). Soraya
answers her mother saying: “But if I’m happy, what’s wrong with that?” (29).The
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mother’s answer to her does not contain any explanation. She just says: “You shouldn’t
show it. Finish” (29).
Soraya is not really convinced by her mother’s statement as she seems unable to
provide answers to her daughter other than the obligation to blindly follow Arab
traditions. The teenager criticizes this narrow way of thinking which aims to restrict
women’s behavior in order to control them through a set of rules imported from the
homeland, and again perpetuated by women. She expresses her rejection of such
impositions and her intention to experience what these rules consider inappropriate. As
she says:
I like to have fun, to enjoy myself and to feel good. I have always been
that way. My mother tells me how wrong this is, like it is evil or
something and my sister says the same thing. I think they think it’s
wrong because they don’t know what it is to be satisfied, and it scares
them. It seems all of the women in our family are like this. Even though
married ladies talk about sex, it is always within the context of a
marriage and you have to have been a virgin. (30)
Here, yet again, Soraya distances herself from her female relatives as she reveals that
sexual freedom is a fundamental component of her own perception of herself as a
liberated woman. She criticizes the fact that sex is still a taboo that most women of her
community deliberately avoid to the point that they do not know the meaning of
satisfaction. This kind of self-censorship prevents them from exercising their freedom
and knowing how good it feels to do it. Moreover, Soraya highlights the element of fear
as she considers that Arab women are afraid of getting satisfaction. In the same line of
reasoning, she expresses her rejection of the idea of virginity declaring that she is not
concerned by it. In fact, she claims the right to be the mistress of her own body and
rejects any traditions that restrict her freedom and prevent her from finding happiness.
However, Soraya explains that in order to exercise that freedom she has to lie to
her parents: “This year I told my family a thousand and one lies and went to a disco and
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danced for a beautiful man who came to love me, love me so much that I carried his
credit card, wore his jewelry, and had lunch with him until I satisfied him in every way”
(28). The girl’s determination to enjoy her sexual freedom is obvious to such an extent
that she declares herself “a new breed. A rebel. My mother and her sisters can spill a
story from any woman, but I can make a man talk. I am in between. Familiar ears. Safe
mouth. I have men as friends, as well as lovers” (56). Hence, in the process of
deconstructing Arab women’s behavior regarding sex, Soraya tries to find a negotiated
in-between space of her own where she celebrates her status of a new breed. Unlike her
female counterparts, she is not afraid of men as she has no problem getting closer to
them whether as friends or as lovers. She has the advantage of being able to choose
what kind of relationship she wants to have with the men surrounding her, whether to be
the friend who they do not hesitate to trust to keep their secrets, or the lover who
satisfies them and enjoys lovemaking with them. Soraya definitely has no taboos as she
has released herself from the ethical and moral rules related to her Arab culture which
control women’s sexuality and also judge them according to their sexual behavior.
Therefore, the teenager rejects ethical judgments about her sexual behavior
which she tries to remove from the religious and moral scale: “I’m sick of everything
being haram or halal, but nothing in between. I am in between” (117). Soraya insists on
her status as a new breed whose aim is to find an in-between space devoid of extremes.
Her situation echoes what Amy Ling calls the “between-world” condition of Chinese
second generation immigrants in the United States. She asserts that
the very condition [of the between-world] itself carries both negative and
positive charges. On the one hand, being between-worlds can be
interpreted to mean occupying the space or gulf between two banks; one
is thus in a state of suspension, accepted by neither side and therefore
truly belonging nowhere… On the other hand, viewed from a different
perspective, being between worlds may be considered as having
footholds on both banks and therefore belonging to two worlds at once.
One does not have less; one has more. (177)
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Aware of her situation, Soraya is looking for a space situated between both worlds she
belongs to. For this reason, she wants to do away with the dichotomy of “haram” and
“halal” according to Muslim codes, through situating herself somewhere in between.
These two terms are commonly used in Muslim societies in order to denote whether or
not something is permissible or forbidden, including aspects of behavior, speech, dress
and food. As defined in The Historical Dictionary of Islam,42 “Haram is that which is
forbidden and sinful and will be punished on the Day of Judgment” (Adamec 2009:
119). On the other hand, the term “halal” means “‘Permissible.’ That which is lawful
and allowed, as compared to that which is forbidden (haram). It includes proper
behavior in law as well as the consumption of food” (115). Hence, the girl seems
dissatisfied with what she considers to be the essentialist perception of religion dividing
everything into two opposed extremes limiting her freedom. She simply wants to do
away with these labels and find refuge in her own space.
Soraya’s longing to find this space is not only the outcome of her rejection of
Arab traditions but also of her frustrated attempts to belong to America. In this context,
Amal Talaat Abdelrazek states that “Soraya suffers from a deep sense of displacement,
living in two different worlds but failing to become part of either one. She fluctuates
between an Arab world that she loves but whose traditions she rejects and an American
world that she looks up to but cannot attain” (140). The teenager is aware that she is
perceived as different and even exotic by mainstream America, which prevents her from
being accepted. “‘She’s Arabian,’ they say at my high school as I pass by them. ‘In her
country they don’t have furniture or dish-washers, only oil’” (Halaby 2003: 24). Not
only does she let her school mates expose their stereotypical ideas about her homeland
42
Adamec, Ludwig W. Historical Dictionary of Islam. Lanham: Scarecrow Press, 2009. Print.
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and her people, but she also contributes to the reinforcement of such misconceptions
and misrepresentations. “I tell them what they want to hear, which is nasty stories about
young men sticking their things into goats and some twelve-year-old girl being carried
off on a camel to be third wife to old Shaykh So-and-So and the five oil wells my father
owns” (24).
This story reminds me of my own personal experience from my first two years
in Spain. This occurred to me countless times when I first met people who had been to
Tunisia, my country of origin. I carefully listened to their stories as tourists in the
bazaars of the medina quarters scattered all over Tunisian cities. To my astonishment,
they always finished with the story of the handsome Tunisian shop keeper who offered
one hundred or so camels to someone’s father or husband or boyfriend in order to get
her as a wife. I have always taken seriously these kinds of stories which used to upset
me very much. I come from the northeast coast of Tunisia, my family lives in a big
bright white house by the Mediterranean Sea, and no one has offered my father a single
camel to ask him for my hand in marriage. As far as I know, we do not exchange camels
for women in Tunisia. I have always considered these kinds of camel jokes as awful and
embarrassing because most of these people actually believed them. In my opinion, these
shop keepers are the ones to blame because in their attempts to get closer to the tourists
and even flirt with Western girls, they try to focus on stereotypes in order to emphasize
their mysterious exotic side. Unfortunately, the consequence of this behavior rather
gives the impression of Tunisia as a backward country and helps reinforce the orientalist
preconceptions of the recipient.
Just like this kind of Tunisian shop keepers, Soraya uses the stereotypes
commonly used against her people in order to approach her American classmates. She
tells them what they want to hear so as to satisfy them, and therefore, get their
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acceptance. The girl mentions her mother’s reaction to this, and says: “my mother
exploded the first time she heard about a story I told. ‘You have to show the best of us,
not the ugly lies.’ But I let my ambassador sister and cousins do that while I talk ghetto
slang” (24). Therefore, the girl’s mother worries about the misconceptions of her Arab
culture among mainstream America, which is obviously not the case of an indifferent
Soraya who is just seeking a way to set foot in the American world. Speaking ghetto
slang is part of this strategy too, to the dismay of her sister: “‘That’s not English!’ My
sister yells. ‘My ass this ain’t English!’ I yell back” (24). This special style of speech is
another element that Soraya uses in order to lay her claim to her Americanness.
However, the girl is aware that the myth of America and the American dream are
not valid for everybody. She comes to realize that through the experiences of many
Arab immigrants she has witnessed in her milieu. She criticizes the internalization of a
sometimes pernicious individualism when she contest the ideal of the immigrant who
“Works His Ass off” (57) in order not only to make it and succeed, but also to be
accepted in America. On the other hand, Steven Salaita mentions non-immigrant
Americans’ mythology which casts “the United States as a secure but perpetually
threatened site of economic possibility and ethical exceptionalism. (The notion of
American exceptionalism claims that the United Sates is an exceptional force of good in
the world and that no other nation can match its freedoms and its inventiveness)” (8081). In this context, what Soraya does in her narrative is to undermine these American
dream ideals through her exposé of Arab immigrant characters whose experiences in the
United States have actually led them to deceive themselves.
She speaks, for instance, about Sameer Samaha, the hardworking immigrant
whose “story is the saddest Nawara story” (Halaby 2003: 84) the teenager has known.
He “came to this country to be a success story, not a millionaire success, but a place
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here and a house in Nawara and lots of kids and enough money to be a happy kind of
success” (84). He has worked hard for long hours for Soraya’s father in order to save all
the money he can for the future he dreams of. In a period of five years he becomes able
to “put a down payment on a house – a house here is Los Angeles!—and returned to
Nawara with his savings to look for a bride” (86). Once back in America with his
beautiful wife Suad, he goes back to his long working days while she is left alone at
home. He starts little by little to neglect being loving and caring about her as he comes
back home late at night so exhausted, which has led to his wife’s growing
dissatisfaction after three years of marriage.
One day, after witnessing his coworker’s romantic proposal to his fiancée
applauded by people in the street, he feels the need to go home. “‘I have to kiss my
wife,’ he said. ‘I have to love her and make her feel loved. I will treat her Americanstyle with no hiding words” (93). He asks for a permit to leave work early and heads
home. Unfortunately, just in front of the house and in the presence of Suad, he gets
stabbed fourteen times by a supposed mugger to whom he has refused to hand over his
wallet. However, Soraya has her own doubts about Sameer’s tragic end as she thinks
that Suad has something to do with it. She suspects that the latter has invented it all, and
that the poor man has actually been murdered by his wife’s presumed lover after he has
caught them together. She has always thought that Suad is “a very smart girl,” while
Sameer “wasn’t that brilliant,” and in addition to that, she is “one of those people who
show one face outside her house and another one inside it” (88). In this sense, the girl
speculates that Suad has been taking on secret lovers in her husband’s absence in order
to find company and entertainment. Therefore, Soraya comes to the following
conclusion: “So that is what you get for Working Your Ass Off and then trying to be
traditional” (95). Sameer has realized too late – on the day of his death— that he has
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been working too hard at the expense of his marriage and his own life as well. Hence,
the teenager here highlights the fact that hard work and honesty alone are not a
guarantee for success in America.
Soraya’s narrative also takes the reader into the life of her Palestinian friend
Walid, who she describes as “Student Visa Who Made Friends With Americans. He
went to technical school, and now he repairs copy machines and pretty much Works His
Ass Off” (57). Walid is presented as a hardworking young man who has chosen to adopt
an American lifestyle and hence to keep his distance from the Arab community because
he thinks “they are too expensive to be around. ‘Someone is always getting married,
having a baby, getting a new job, and you have to spend too much money on them. I
spend money on no one and no one spends money on me.’ That, and they are very
nosy” (57). Walid is not interested in participating in his community’s family and social
events, in this way loosening his ties with his peers. Embracing American
individualism, he refuses to either give or receive money as this is common on this kind
of occasion. He prefers to spend the money on his own things and to keep himself safe
from the Arab American community’s possible judgments and gossip. That’s why he
has chosen to stay away from them and live among white Americans. In this sense,
Soraya adds that Walid’s “tastes are pure white man. Lives in Orange County… Every
Friday he does not go to pray, but instead goes to Samson’s, three blocks from his
apartment. And has four beers, just enough to carry you away” (57).
However, Soraya mentions an incident she and Walid get involved in once in a
bar with a group of white men. After a while inside talking, they are approached by a
white customer yelling at them: “Speak English!”. Walid’s answer that they speak what
they please does not satisfy the man who replies: “Fucking Mexicans” (58). The two
Arab Americans decide to leave when the man brings his friends and says, “You speak
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English pretty good for a wetback. Just remember, this ain’t a Mexican joint. You go
somewhere else to drink your cervezas and hang out with your puta” (59). This man’s
racist comments convey his belief that Soraya and Walid have violated the white
exclusivity of “The Jack Knife” bar with its “white name, white customers, white
neighborhood” (58). He condemns them as foreigners who have no right to be in the
same place as the country’s true citizens who are the white people, according to him. He
uses offensive remarks and insults in order to show that he has the authority to decide
who can be in that all-white place and that there is no room for immigrants. Therefore,
this segregationist discourse draws a line between the man’s group, on the one hand,
and Walid and Soraya, on the other, classifying them as the “Others.”
When the white man reiterates his insults towards the two young people
addressing them again as “Fucking Mexicans!” Soraya retorts: “‘We are not Mexicans!’
I shouted. ‘We are Americans’” (59). In this escalating situation, the young girl bravely
defies this racist by claiming their Americanness. Her aim is to shout out loud that they
are just as American as him, and that they have the same rights in this country of theirs.
This defiant reaction further infuriates this group of white men, and consequently, leads
them to commit aggression and violence. They beat up Walid, leaving him lying on the
floor and run away. This is their reaction to Soraya’s declaration that she and Walid are
Americans. They see themselves as defending the purity of American identity from
brown or colored invaders.
Later, when a policewoman comes to investigate the aggression, the following
conversation takes place:
“So they beat you up for being Mexican?” the policewoman asked.
“We’re not Mexican.”
“You got beaten up for being Mexican and you’re not Mexican? What
are you?”
“Palestinian.”
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“Well you got off pretty lucky then.” The policewoman was quiet for a
minute. “That jacket sure makes you look Mexican.” (59-60)
To the dismay of Walid and Soraya, the policewoman suggests that being Arab is
considered worse than being Mexican and that the situation would have been much
worse if the group had known their real background. Halaby here focuses on the
perception of Arabs in mainstream America, where stereotypes have created a
homogenized as well as dehumanized image of them inspiring rejection and hatred. At
this moment, the American dream gets smashed to pieces and becomes a nightmare, as
it does not seem to be available for all, and even less so for Palestinians.
Soraya’s disenchantment is so deep that this episode makes her bitterly think
about the set of stereotypes ruling the Americans’ portrayal of her people.
Sneak back home, heart pounding hours later, with rage, with hate. What
loser morons and, squeezing tears out, wishing that it was one of those
American movies where Walid would knock those guys to the floor and
we would walk off without a scratch, my heroic prince defending my
honor… but that’s not what the American movie would show, would it?
Instead it would show the super American guy knocking the scummy
Arab flat on the ground like what happened. Still wishing… that I were a
superhero like in those cartoons where she comes in and wipes out the
bad guys and still looks great. But there aren’t any Arab ones, are there?
My hair is too dark, too thick; my skin is too far away from white to let
me even pretend to be an American superhero. (60)
Back home, Soraya is still affected by the incident she has been involved in at the bar
and the subsequent policewoman’s subsequent comments confirming the idea about the
rejection of Arabs, and Palestinians in particular, in American society. In a moment, the
girl’s imagination makes her reproduce the scene and put it in the context of a movie
where Walid is portrayed as a superhero who is able to defeat the aggressors and save
the girl.
However, she ruefully realizes at once that this kind of scene is unlikely to
appear in American movies, which are generally unfavorable to Arabs who are mostly
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portrayed as foreign backward villains and terrorists to be defeated. Now she knows that
this is also true in real life. After that, Soraya regrets that she cannot imagine herself
either as an American cartoon superhero because of her non-white physical appearance
which would be judged too ethnic, too Arab. Moreover, she knows that Arab women
can neither be positively depicted in Hollywood nor can they be presented as other than
submissive and oppressed. The girl is frustrated and then resigned about the
representation of Arabs in American media and Hollywood movies. Indeed, the scholar
Jack Shaheen has made an analysis of about 900 Americans films to document his work
about the portrayal of Arabs in American films. He states that the representations of
Middle Easterners in the films that he has studied include:
Bearded Mullahs, billionaire sheiks, terrorist bombers, black Bedouins,
and noisy bargainers. Woman surface either as gun toters or bumbling
subservient, or as belly dancers bouncing voluptuously in palaces and
erotically oscillating in slave markets. More recently, image-makers are
offering other caricatures of Muslim women: covered in black from head
to toe, they appear as uneducated, unattractive and enslaved beings,
slowly attending man, they follow several paces behind abusive sheiks.
(2000: 23)
Hence, aware of this reality, Soraya comes to realize that she will never be accepted as
an American girl and that she will always be subjected to racism in a country where race
lines matter and where it is not really safe to be Arab.
The young girl’s deconstruction of the American dream through the recounting
of her own experiences as well as those of Palestinian immigrants in the United States
has helped her understand that assimilation into American society is beyond her reach.
She observes how painful her journey to find a space for her own has become. Hence, at
the end of her narrative, she remembers Palestine: “Who would think I would want to go
back, just to watch my grandmother watching the day that sits slow and fat like a
watermelon, watch the sky watching us, beg for the sun to cover us quietly” (Halaby
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2003:189). Soraya reveals the nostalgia she feels inside about her home country and her
wish that she had never left for America with her parents for a new life there. She
misses the simplicity and quietness of Nawara. She misses her grandmother. The image
of the latter is highly significant as it stands for the origins, the roots and the attachment
to the land. However, we learn that her grandmother is dying, which implies the
imminent loss of one of the most important bonds to Palestine. But although she has no
memories of her early life there, Soraya feels the need to maintain the links with the
homeland which may provide her with the answers she is looking for.
The girl openly expresses the feelings of loss and displacement when she says:
“Lost in somewhere you grew up in, with a language you have taken, with a world that
you want, but which is behind that clear steel curtain. Watch it. Watch it all you want,
but it will never be yours” (189). Soraya expresses her frustration at the “steel curtain”
which prevents her from having access to America, a country she has grown up in and
whose language she speaks. Her eagerness to fully belong to America is likely to remain
unsatisfied because of this strong barrier which does not allow her to cross to the other
side. Nevertheless, Soraya is unwilling to be one of Nawara’s women with unfulfilled
dreams. She knows about her family’s intention to marry her off soon but she refuses
this fate awaiting her, as well as all the restrictions imposed on her by her community’s
rules:
I don’t want a husband who walks under clouds, that is not my freedom.
How can God mean this for anyone, a struggle that can never be won, a
debt that can never be repaid. I sit silently and wait and pretend it does
not exist, pretend there is no after-anything, that all there is, is now and I
have to eat it up, devour what I can because there is no take-out service
here. (190)
Caught between two worlds, she is aware of the need to overcome the displacement she
feels in the midst of the different Arab and American realities. On the one hand, she is
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afraid of the role of wife and mother she is expected to perform soon according to her
parents’ plans for her. On the other, she is tired of trying to set foot in a world beyond
her reach and which increases her alienation. Therefore, she comes to the conclusion
that she can no longer live a double life as she has been doing so far. She knows that she
has to find her own negotiated in-between space where she can live her difference and
celebrate the new breed status she claims for herself. In the meantime, she finds refuge
in music and dancing, “music loud, loud, loud, to drown it all and make my escape
plan” (191).
3.2.3 Khadija: The Shy one
Just like her cousin Soraya, Khadija struggles to negotiate a complicated second
generation Arab American experience and a conflicted individual identity. Her narrative
displays her character’s development as well as the shaping of her personality and
identity. The different stories she narrates take the reader to some episodes of her life
that help trace her experience as an Arab American female teenager. Born in the United
States to Palestinian parents, she has lived in Los Angeles all her life and she has never
had the opportunity to visit her homeland. She opens her narrative explaining the origin
of her name: “In Islam, Khadija was the Prophet Muhammad’s wife. She was much
older than he was and had a lot of money. He was said to have loved her very much”
(36). Despite the girl’s attempts to emphasize her name’s positive historical connotation
related to the Islamic tradition, the very fact that she feels it necessary to give an
explanation of it right at the beginning reveals how uncomfortable she feels about it.
She openly expresses her belief that this kind of name actually makes her life difficult:
“In America my name sounds like someone throwing up or falling off a bicycle. If they
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can get the first part of it right, the ‘Kha’ part, it comes out like clearing your throat
after eating ice cream” (36). Khadija has a name difficult to pronounce for non Arabs
which makes her feel embarrassed about her American friends’ inability to say it
correctly.
Hence, the girl’s name is the first element which marks her difference from
others. She even syas that, “I’m sure that if the original Khadija went to school in
America that she would hate her name just as much as I do” (36). The teenager’s
awareness about the beauty and significance of her name does not prevent her from
hating it. Her discomfort leads her to choose a Western name and ask her friends at
school to call her Diana. Khadija feels that her name does not suit her because it
prevents her from being the American she wants to be. This name-changing
symbolizes the girl’s aim to do away with her Arab cultural identity in order to find
harmony within her American milieu. This reminds one of the naming practices
followed by many early Arab Americans who, regardless of their religious
background, have changed their first names or family names to more American- or
European-sounding ones as part of their efforts to integrate into American society and
accelerate their assimilation process. For instance, “a Muslim man named Abd Allah,
meaning the ‘servant of God,’ may change his name into Abdul, meaning ‘servant of,’
which does not seem to have a complete meaning. Similarly, many Christian Arabs
change their Arabic names that are found in the Bible such as Ibrahim or Butrus into
Abraham and Peter, their English counterparts” (Almubaye 2007: 93).
However, Khadija’s attempts to pass as an American through the adoption of a
Western name turns out to be in vain. In fact, one of her classmates tells her: “But, you
don’t look like a Diana.” When Khadija asks what she does look like, the girl replies: “I
don’t know. Like a Kadeeja, I guess” (Halaby 2003: 37). Therefore, apart from her
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name, her Arab features emphasize her difference as well, which makes it more difficult
for her to pretend to be a Diana at school, which is an important location where she has
the opportunity to live through some decisive experiences on her journey to come to
terms with her identity. In this context, the girl mentions her teacher Mr. Napolitano,
who “expects me to know more than the other kids because my parents aren’t American
themselves. I want to scream at him that I am just as American as anyone here” (74).
Hence, Khadija’s teacher here contributes to her growing sense of alienation as he
classifies her as a non-American. Although she likes him as a teacher, she disapproves
of his tendency to label his pupils as either Americans or non-Americans. Nevertheless,
being an American by right of birth makes her strongly proclaim her Americanness
against the attempts of all the others – her parents and her teacher among them – to
consider her otherwise, which leads her to somehow reject her ethnic origin.
In this same context, the teenager mentions how her mother “gets really mad”
during their recurrent arguments about who she is: “‘You are Palestinian,’ she says in
Arabic. ‘You are Palestinian,’ I tell her in English. ‘I am American.’” (74). This kind of
conversation is significant as even the different languages used by the mother and her
daughter emphasize the divergence between them. Here we can perceive a generational
gap where the mother is deeply attached to her cultural and ethnic identity, and
expecting her recalcitrant daughter to be the same. Khadija tries to convince her mother
with arguments to illustrate her point of view. She says, “Ma, I can’t speak Arabic right,
I’ve never even been there, and I don’t like all of those dancing parties. I like stories and
movies. I can be American and still be your daughter” (74).
The girl here sheds light on the lack of any strong ties connecting her to the Arab
homeland in order to prove that she is American and not Arab. She starts with the
Arabic language that she has not mastered, which in itself signifies the loss of an
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important characteristic of her cultural identity. In this sense, Sjak Kroon asserts that
“language is one of the major features of ethnic or ethnolinguistic group membership
and that ethnic identity is most powerfully expressed through the ethnic group
language” (421). Accordingly, taking into account the reciprocal relationship between
language and ethnic identity, Khadija’s indifference towards her parents’ language
suggests her desire to not belong to the Arab community.
The teenager argues as well that she has never visited Palestine, which means
that she has not had the opportunity to examine the homeland in situ with all of its
features. Everything that she knows about it has been told to her by others because she
has never lived her own Palestinian experience. Hence, the perception that she has about
Palestine is constructed upon her parents’ and relatives’ memories, which means
collective memories and not her own individual ones. In this way, the access she has to
Arab culture is also conditioned by the mediation of the others. It is important to
highlight the crucial role played by collective memories as they provide a sense of
continuity needed for the construction of a diasporic community. However, Mary
Chamberlain gives an equal importance to individual memories for people in diaspora,
stating that
memories are all unique and personal, each an account of the individual’s
life course from childhood to maturity, of the transformations from a […]
village to a migrant in a busy metropolis, and of the fictionalizing process
inherent in the construction of a narrative of self. Memories are a key
route into revealing and understanding the 38 processes, adjustments, and
negotiations of migrants, of the mobile and liminal worlds they inhabit,
of the connections with and the longings for home. (185-86)
Therefore, collective memories alone are definitely not enough for Khadija to construct
her own diasporic experience as a Palestinian American. Consequently, the absence of
the personal and individual aspect of this experience makes it difficult for her to feel a
sense of belonging to her Arab community.
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In the aforementioned quarrel between daughter and mother, the teenager
continues her argumentation choosing to use dancing parties as a representative aspect
of Arab culture that she does not identify with in order to contrast it with stories and
movies that she does relate to in American culture. She categorically rejects these social
and family gatherings that constitute a crucial part of community life. In my opinion,
Khadija here once more shows her resistance to being considered Palestinian or even
half Palestinian, half American. She does not seem to accept her hyphenated identity
because she perceives herself as American only. Finally, she concludes her argument
saying that while being American she still is her mother’s daughter. Nevertheless, the
mother does not seem to care about her daughter’s reasoning and firmly states: “No! No
daughter of mine is American” (Halaby 2003: 74). The mother, as a first-generation
immigrant to the United States holding an idealized image of her homeland cannot
easily accept her daughter’s embracing of the host country’s culture, and tries to instill
in her the importance of Palestine and to force her to follow Arab traditions. She has
brought up her daughter in a strict way, forcing her to spend her time doing housework
and looking after her younger brothers. With such domineering parents, Khadija has no
choice.
There is another telling example which illustrates Khadija’s continuous
challenge to her parents: her Jewish school friend Michael. The girl is aware that she
cannot tell her parents about this friendship, first because Michael is a boy and second,
because he is Jewish. She says that at her age she is not allowed anymore to befriend
boys. She, however, does not consider that being the daughter of Palestinian parents
should be an obstacle to having a Jewish friend. After all, if her family and relatives
blame the Israeli Jews for the loss of Palestine, she does not seem to care about it. She
rather tries to find points in common between Michael and herself, such as the fact that
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both Muslims and Jews face east when they pray. Although Khadija’s mother always
tries to monitor her daughter’s acquaintances, the girl has succeeded this time in hiding
her friendship with Michael.
Once more, it is the mother’s role to preserve the homeland’s values and models
and to reproduce them in the present in order to transmit them to the daughters. Ernest
McCarus states that,
The majority of immigrant Palestinian women in the United States
believe that certain values considered traditional in Western society form
the backbone of their culture and deserve the highest respect. These
include the primacy of the extended family, collective responsibility for
kin, hospitality, respect for status superiors, and control of women’s
sexuality. (89)
Among the values that Khadija’s mother tries to inculcate in her daughter, I will
concentrate now on the sexual aspect. The teenager complains about the lack of
dialogue with her mother as she talks to her “only about house things and taking-careof-your-brothers things, and sometimes don’t-do-that-or-you’ll-never-marry things”
(Halaby 2003: 37). Hence, the mother warns the teenager to keep “that secret thing
between your legs” (178), highlighting in this way the importance of virginity. She
explains to her that “your husband has to be the one to take it from you… Otherwise
you are a disgrace to us and we are stuck with you forever.” The mother insists and
switches to English to make herself clearer and says, “You shameful” (179). The
mother’s insistence on her daughter being Palestinian just like her reveals her wish that
the young girl should cultivate bonds to the homeland exclusively and not to America.
She is acutely aware that Khadija is growing up in a place with different social and
cultural realities, which spurs her to use warnings and threats in order to orient her
because otherwise she will be a disgrace to the family.
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Hence, when expressing her concern about her daughter’s sexual behavior and
virginity, Shahira, as an average Arab mother, does not give reasons or explanations.
She just exercises control on her daughter’s sexuality through the generation of fear
about everything related to the subject. Her main argument is that losing her virginity
for a girl is a dishonor not only for her but for her whole family. In this context, Khadija
tells the reader about Jennifer, one of her former American friends, whose older brother
“looked at nasty magazines… All of them had naked ladies with huge breasts” (151). In
one of her visits to Khadija’s home, she brings some of these magazines to show them
to the Arab American girl, and they get caught by Shahira. Once she realizes the content
of the magazines, “she screamed curses like I have never heard,” and sends Jennifer
home. Then she “slapped my face, cursed me, cursed America, cursed my father, and
cursed God. She burned the magazines and then the dinner” (152). This passage
conveys the importance of the incident from the mother’s point of view. Shahira’s
shock and subsequent reaction indicate her fear of finding herself face to face with what
she considers America’s ugly face, the one she has been struggling to protect her
daughter from. She realizes the fragility of the line that she has drawn to separate her
transplanted Arab household from American influence.
Nevertheless, Khadija does not rebel against the conservative upbringing she has
received, which is not the case with her cousin Soraya. Her posture towards sexuality is
shaped by her parents’ Arab convictions that she obediently accepts. Once, Khadija is
invited by her American friend Patricia for a slumber party. When she tells her friend
about her parents’ refusal to let her accept the invitation, Patricia replies:
“How are you ever going to have sex with a boy if you always have to
sleep at home?”
I felt funny, like she was laughing at me. I had never thought about sex
with a boy before I got married. I know that American girls do that, and
probably even my cousin Soraya, but that’s different. (173)
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Khadija’s opinion obviously differs from her American peers’ and even from her cousin
Soraya’s. Although she continuously identifies herself as American, she still cannot get
rid of many aspects of the traditional upbringing she has received from her Arab
parents. She admits here that she is different from American girls.
Khadija’s attitude to sexuality can be clearly observed in the episode involving
her two American friends Michael and Patricia, whom she accidentally sees having sex.
One day after school, she goes to Patsy’s house to do her homework. When Michael
comes over after a while, Patsy tells Khadija that they are going to leave her alone and
do their homework together in another room. After a long while, she decides to go after
them, only to find them under the covers in the bedroom of Patsy’s parents. Khadija is
extremely shocked at what she has just seen:
I turned away and shut the door behind me. I felt horrible, like can’t-see
and can’t-think kind of horrible. My books were all over the place and I
couldn’t stuff them in my bag fast enough. I ran from her front door to
our house. Thinking about what I saw made me feel dirty, like when you
go by a car crash and look by accident and on purpose at the same time,
but then you feel sick because of what you saw. (179-80)
She is ashamed even to the point of feeling dirty for having witnessed this intimate
scene between her friends. Hence, she decides to keep it as an “ugly secret” (178)
because she has nobody to confess to and discuss this kind of topic.
However, it is at home that Khadija finds refuge to recover from this traumatic
experience. Once back home, she finds her mother playing with her little brother, and
she starts to cry. The following tender conversation then takes place,
“What’s wrong little cucumber? Are you sick?”
“Sick, sick,” said Hamouda
My mother hugged me and felt my forehead.
“I think I’m getting sick,” I told her. “Lots of the kids at school are sick,”
I lied.
“You stay home with us and we’ll make you better, won’t we Hamouda.”
Hamouda looked at me and shouted, “Yes!” (180)
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Khadija is terrified when she finds herself face to face with sexuality, from which she
has been taught to stay away because it is something shameful and wrong for girls like
her. She is terrified by the idea that sexuality, in contradiction to the conceptions that
her Arab environment has transmitted to her, is actually close to her. Consequently,
sexuality has become a disturbing and confusing factor leading to the girl’s feeling of
displacement within American culture, which explains her restoring to her Arab
mother’s arms to find comfort and to get healed from the harm caused by this particular
aspect of American lifestyle.
Although she does not miss any opportunity to proclaim that she is American,
Khadija has actually internalized much of her family’s Palestinian cultural values. She
realizes this, for instance, in the first visit she makes to Patsy’s house. For her, “it was
like walking into a TV show” (150). In this first contact with what can be labeled as an
average American family, she observes the difference between her own family and
Patsy’s. She notes how her friend’s father is concentrated on television without caring
about his kids or talking with them, while the mother is out. After an hour or so, the
latter comes back home bringing fried chicken for dinner. While Khadija gets excited
because she never eats food from the outside, Patsy’s six-year-old brother complains:
“Again? We have to eat fried rats again?” (150). However, when Patsy is invited earlier
to have dinner at Khadija’s house, Shahira has proudly prepared “musakhan,” a typical
Palestinian dish, and French fries to the surprise of the American girl: “You made these
French fries? They’re not frozen? You cut them up and everything?” (149). Therefore,
Shahira’s overwhelming presence in her household is obviously contrasted with the
absence of Patsy’s mother, which delineates the divergence of their family patterns.
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Khadija’s mother summarizes cultural differences between Arab and American
families when her daughter tells her that Patsy’s brother is named after Mick Jagger.
While the girl is amused at that, an astonished Shahira declares: “This is the problem
with America! Instead of naming their children after family or prophets or heroes, they
name them after rock stars. Who would believe such a thing?” (151). She believes that
there is a huge gap separating her Arab culture from the American one. Moreover, she
tries to make this cultural barrier clear to her daughter in order to warn her about the
consequences of letting herself get corrupted by America, and more importantly to
highlight that they do not belong there. This is exactly what Khadija’s father incessantly
reminds her about, too.
The father’s rejection of America is the consequence of the frustration he feels
due to his failed American dream. He is third mechanic at a repair shop which means
that his job is not stable. Hence, he is not able to afford a comfortable life for his family
because he is going through financial hardships. On the one hand, he constantly
expresses his pain at being away from his country and his regret about the loss of
Palestine. In fact, he repeatedly tells his daughter that, “my ache comes from losing my
home” (39). On the other, his American experience is not a success story; his daughter
expresses it thus: “My father has many dreams that have been filled with sand. That’s
what he tells me: ‘This country has taken my dreams that used to float like those giant
balloons, and filled them with sand. Now they don’t float, and you can’t even see what
they are anymore’” (37). Consequently, as a man of unfulfilled dreams and suffering
from nostalgia for his lost home country, Khadija’s father finds refuge in alcohol
turning into an aggressive and abusive father and husband, affecting in this way his
family’s lives and particularly his daughter’s.
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Khadija states that for her, “the scariest thing is: when he drinks. He doesn’t do
it that often and he doesn’t have to drink that much before his eyes become bullets, his
fists the curled hands of a boxer, and our living room the ring of Monday Night
Wrestling” (38). Once, her drunk father forces her to drink some liquor despite her
attempts to resist him. After that, he drags her violently to her mother and tells her that
their daughter has been drinking. The girl describes this humiliating scene:
I remained where I was, but the fire went from my belly to his eyes and
he pulled me by the arm and then by the ear and dragged me into the
kitchen where my mother was cutting vegetables.
“Oh Mother of Shit,” he called to her. “Your little dog of a daughter has
been drinking. Smell her mouth.”
My mother leaned over me and sniffed my mouth and I closed my eyes.
She slapped my face and the fire came back to me.
“He made me drink it,” I screamed, and saw my father’s eyes enlarge.
“A drinker and a liar!” he shouted, and started hitting me everywhere. I
screamed and screamed and finally got free and ran to my room. I opened
the closet and closed the door behind me and prayed to God the fire
would burn somewhere else. (38-39)
This is one of the scariest moments lived by Khadija showing the kind of abuse she has
to endure from her violent and even cruel father. He manipulates a whole situation in
order to create an opportunity to humiliate his daughter and at the same time insult his
wife. Moreover, the scene displays Shahira as a passive mother who makes no efforts to
establish a dialogue with her daughter. She just does not want to listen to the girl’s
explanations and resorts to physical violence to punish her.
We witness this oppressive and abusive treatment that Khadija receives at home
in some other episodes. For instance, Soraya mentions in her narrative the time when
Khadija takes two dollars from her brother’s money in order to buy a barrette. The
brother takes revenge on her and tells his father that he has seen his sister kissing a boy
at school. “Khadija’s father didn’t ask her if it was true, he just came after her with a
belt, yelling slut and whore at her. She didn’t go to school for two days, and the next
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time I saw her she wouldn’t look at me, just held her head down like her shoes were the
prettiest things ever” (31). The aggressive father does not even give his daughter the
opportunity to defend herself and claim her innocence. He directly resorts to violence
and insults and humiliations to the girl’s submission and passiveness.
Nevertheless, Khadija decides to put an end to her passive behavior towards her
father’s oppression just the day before Shahira’s return from Palestine after visiting her
dying mother. That day, the teenager realizes that her father has drunk a whole bottle of
liquor which makes her feel that something scary is about to happen. Everything starts
when her two-year-old brother Hamouda looks at his father and says “wild dog with a
tick ass” (206). Khadija narrates what happens, and how her grandfather, Siddi, tries to
intervene:
Baba sets on fire and I’m in the kitchen trying to be invisible and slap
slap slap and the baby cries, so I go to see and Hamouda’s arm is in my
father’s teeth and blood and then Siddi comes up to hold my father or to
take the baby from him, and my father hits him hard, his own father, and
knocks him to the floor and then goes back to the baby, who’s just crying
and crying and crying. (207)
The girl is extremely shocked to see the extent of her father’s violence under the
influence of alcohol. Not only is he able to hit his baby boy but also his old father.
Khadija has heard her mother once say that “she thought Baba might be crazy because
of all the things he did, but especially because he didn’t respect his father properly”
(192). Now she sees with her own eyes her father’s disrespect and violencetowards his
own father in addition to the little baby, and decides to take action. “I do what I have
never done. I run to the phone and dial 911 like they say to do in school” (207).
Khadija calls the police on her father to seek protection for her brothers and
grandfather. Therefore, she uses what she has learnt at her American school against her
Palestinian father. She puts into practice her American half despite her fear of what
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could happen afterwards. “Scary is what is going to happen to us until Ma comes back.
Scary is what Ma will do and if they’ll say it’s my fault” (208). Although she is scared
of the consequence of her action, she tries to comfort her little brother as well as herself,
“‘It’s okay little cucumber,’ I whisper in English in Hamouda’s ear. ‘We’ll be okay.
We’ll be okay, God willing’” (208). The girl is aware that her action is a serious
challenge to her parents’ homeland values and that she will be blamed for what might
happen to her family consequently.
However, it seems that this experience has changed Khadija from a vulnerable
passive teenager to a decisive and active young woman who stands against her father’s
abuse and violence. This obvious turning point is an important step for Khadija’s
process of self negotiation as she decides to abandon her submissive life. She raises the
alarm to warn her parents about this dysfunctional household of theirs dominated by
fear and violence. Khadija is actually branding her parents, and especially her abusive
father, an opportunity to reconsider in order to change and try to make things work. The
teenager has proved to be brave after all which will help her overcome the strong sense
of displacement that she feels as an Arab American girl, and therefore try to reconcile
the different elements interacting in her life. Steven Salaita states that “Khadija’s story
does not have a happy ending, a fact that in itself undermines a cherished American
mythology” (2011: 83), and this may well be true. However, the girl may seize this
opportunity to make a fresh start as a new person who is able to take decisions, and
therefore, becomes more comfortable in her in-between space and successfully conclude
the negotiation of her identity as an Arab American woman in the United States.
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3.2.4 Hala: The Bridge
In comparison with her cousins, Hala seems to be the one who has succeeded, to
a certain extent, in developing a double sense of belonging to both America and the
Middle East. After a journey of self-searching between these two spaces, she ends up
finding some balance in her negotiation process identifying herself as an Arab as well as
an American. In this context, the girl performs the role of “a symbolic bridge between
the two spaces culturally, politically, and physically” (Salaita 2011: 84). The metaphor
of the bridge is actually recurrent in the literatures of all ethnic American groups. In this
respect, in her study of the works of Chinese American writers, Amy Ling argues that
“the person between worlds is in the indispensable position of being a bridge” (177).
Hala’s character may be considered a personification of such a bridge. She is the
daughter of a Jordanian father and the cousins’ aunt Huda, who at the age of seventeen
moves from Jordan to the United States in order to finish high school and pursue
university studies there. She has lived three years in Arizona with her uncle Hamdi and
his American wife Fay, because of her mother’s desire to grant her the opportunity to
live her own American experience and achieve, in this way, Huda’s own unfulfilled
American dream.
Hala’s narrative starts when she takes the plane to return to Jordan to visit her
dying grandmother after two years of absence. Curiously, her last visit there has been
just after her mother’s death after her first year spent in America. Hala refers to that
crucial moment of her life explaining that “as I started to grow and dream my mother
died” (Halaby 2003: 9). Then, the girl realizes that what has changed the mind of her
strongly opponent father is her mother’s being diagnosed with terminal cancer at the
time. Huda has struggled hard to convince her husband to let Hala move to America.
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Aware of the limitations imposed on women in Jordan, she aims to save Hala from all
of these restrictions and give her the opportunity to live in a free country where she can
continue her studies and go to college. In her attempts to convince her husband, she
states that “If Hala stays here she will rot like me and Latifa. Look at us. We have
rotted. Let Hala go and dream” (9). Huda knows that her daughter is very smart, which
is why she deserves a better destiny than simply being the wife of someone with a role
limited to raising kids. The only way for Hala to have a career, then, is to move away
from Jordan.
Huda is willing to grant Hala freedom in order to allow her to dream and fulfill
her dreams. In previous cases in this chapter, I have discussed the role entrusted to
women to perpetuate female oppression and restrict young girls to the patriarchal social
order. However, Huda does not fit in this category because, as opposed to other
mothers, she is the one struggling hard to set her daughter free and send her out of the
reach of restrictive Arab gender traditions. In this context, Fatima Mernissi addresses
the issue concerning the glorification of traditions in the Arab world. She argues that
“the return to the past, the return to tradition that men are demanding, is a means of
putting things ‘back in order.’ An order that no longer satisfies everybody, especially
not the women who have never accepted it” (1987: 24).43 Mernissi argues that the past
and traditions are used by men in order to restrict and control women and, thus,
maintain female subjugation. In this sense, Huda’s aim is to break this chain of
oppression when she stands up against her husband who “said there was not a chance in
the world that he would let such a young girl go live in America with only a maternal
uncle and his American wife” (Halaby 2003: 9). Nevertheless, that all changes with
Huda’s terminal cancer diagnosis.
43
Mernissi, Fatima. The Veil and the Male Elite: A Feminist Interpretation of Women's Rights in Islam.
Trans. Mary Jo Lakeland. New York: Addison-Wesley, 1987. Print
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Huda’s wish comes true when her husband finally accepts sending Hala to
America. The girl describes her mother’s reaction to this:
My mother was excited, perhaps because she thought I’d have a chance
to finish what she barely started, or perhaps because she thought I’d have
a freer education. Regardless, I was terrified at the thought of being away
from my family, even though the idea of going to America – the America
my mother had only tasted – was exciting. I was tired of being made fun
of for reading, for being too headstrong, for speaking my mind. (9)
On the one hand, Hala becomes motivated to experience her own American dream as a
way to compensate her mother. She feels the need to fulfill Huda’s frustrated dreams
when, as a consequence of lies and gossip about her behavior, she has been forced to
return from America in disgrace and to marry an old foreigner.
Moreover, in spite of being scared to start this experience alone without her
family, Hala longs to find a new place where she can realize herself and get rid of the
displacement she feels in her own country within her own family. She mentions her
always being criticized for the way she is and even for her love of reading, which has
become a subject used to make fun of her. She explains this in the following excerpt:
I spent a lot of time alone reading, a source of embarrassment and
concern for almost everyone in my family. “She will be blind before she
is fifteen years old,” Aunt Suha, my father’s sister, would tell me every
time she came over and found me bent over a book. “You shouldn’t let
her do this or no one will marry her.”
My mother would nod, appeasing Aunt Suha enough to let the subject
rest until the next time she came over. She never discouraged me, though,
and liked to hear about the books I was reading, and read them herself if
she had not done so previously. My father didn’t approve of reading
outside of school texts, and he used to take away my books when he
came across them. (8)
Although encouraged by her mother and her brother Jalal, Hala feels the pressure of this
kind of criticism which reveals a certain fear of the combination of women and books.
Hence, the girl comes to realize that moving to America is the step she needs to take for
her own sake and in order to find better conditions. Hala happily moves to America,
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which seems to be a good option for her search to lead a different life where she can
find happiness and feel fulfilled as a woman and as a professional as well.
However, Hala is back to square one again when she returns to Jordan for the
first time after her mother’s death. She gives an account of the episode when she has to
confront her father who “not even two days into my mourning her death, he made it
clear that he was going to be the one to make the decisions about my life from then on”
(45). Therefore, after the loss of her protective mother, the girl finds herself face to face
with her father’s determination to exercise his authority over her, starting with his
decision to keep her in Jordan. He tells his daughter that “it is time for you to be with
your family. I’m sure you understand. You must think about life now, and plan to put
your roots here as a woman” (45). She understands that her father obviously perceives
her no longer as a little girl but as a grown up woman now ready for marriage.
Hence, Hala realizes her father’s aim to reconstruct the chain of oppression that
has been broken by her mother earlier in order to take away her new life and bring her
back to the fate waiting for girls her age according to Arab traditions in Jordan. Hala
ends up bravely confronting her father to let him know that he cannot take decisions for
her anymore and that she is able to do so now herself:
A screen lifted from my eyes. I was to replace my mother with a
husband. I was to stay in Jordan forever. Marry – engaged even before
high school was over. Have children. Be someone else’s burden.
Maybe I spoke because I learned how to move my tongue like an
American. Maybe it was just my grief that made me lose control. Or
anger.
“I am going back with Hamdi and Fay.”
“You will stay here. You have no more need for them.”
Strength came holding the hand of rage. “My mother’s wish was that I
study in America. If I stay here, I will kill myself. I will go to my mother
and then you will have the blood of two people on your hands.” (45)
Hala clearly expresses her refusal to play the role of the obedient daughter here and to
accept going back to the life she has already escaped. Moreover, she is aware of her
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father’s determination to take advantage of her mother’s absence, which makes her
understand that now she has to rely on herself and use all her weapons to stop him.
Hala even threatens to take her own life to rejoin her mother, implicitly accusing
her father of Huda’s death because marrying him has put an end to all her dreams. Hala
refuses to let history repeat itself and states that she prefers to die rather than to endure
her mother’s frustrated life after her return from America. The girl explains her reaction
as a mixture of anger together with the boldness she has learnt in America. The little girl
who is used to speaking her mind seems to have polished her character during her stay
away from Jordan, which leads her to win this time. Her father’s answer is silence as he
just walks away and does not say good-bye before she leaves for good back to the
United States with Hamdi and Fay.
Two years after, this crucial moment of her life when she considers that “in one
week I lost both my parents” (46), Hala decides to go back to Jordan because of her
paternal grandmother’s death. During her first few days, there she describes her
contradictory feelings at being home again after years of absence as “a mixture of relief
and fatigue” (77). The girl feels relieved and comfortable to be in her family’s house
again where she has lived most of her life, and also to be surrounded by people speaking
her mother language. Nevertheless, this same situation makes her feel alienated because
she knows that her own people perceive her as a foreigner after she has “walked so far
away from them” (77). Her feeling of displacement is enhanced by her difference from
her own people as even her looks do not really match Jordanian standards. She
expresses her discomfort and alienation arguing that:
I know they see me with curious eyes. I left before marrying age. I have
finished high school and I should be coming back for marriage, not for
death. I should have longer hair, I should wear makeup. I should not wear
blue jeans and “extremely unfeminine dresses,” as Aunt Suha says. I
should stop using English words. Nila, one of my classmates at the
American school just married and is pregnant. I am unconnected. (77)
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Therefore, Hala’s experience of crossing borders from Jordan to America and her threeyear stay there has kept her away from her own culture. She even feels unconnected to
the land she comes from together with its traditions and lifestyle, which leads to her
social and cultural alienation. Not only does she feel herself a stranger but she is
perceived as such by others, as well. Hence, in the first couple of weeks back in Jordan,
Hala is experiencing a denial of belonging from her own people and also a feeling of not
belonging from her side.
The girl’s feeling of detachment starts as soon as she sees the house, which she
does not recognize due to her mother’s absence. She states that “everything is white.
The house is white, the yard is white tile, and the six-foot wall that borders the house is
white. White, white, white, white to blind the morning sun, as though they were in
competition” (78). While the color white is commonly associated with purity,
cleanliness, softness, perfection and a soothing effect, among other qualities, in this case
we perceive that the excessive use of it leads to an opposite effect. Hala’s description of
the blinding whiteness covering everything surrounding her home implies a feeling of
coldness, isolation and emptiness. Therefore, the girl finds herself in a house devoid of
any warmth, affection and attachment, and that only inspires lifelessness and
disconnection through its blank walls. Hala feels that the house’s soul has left it with
her mother’s decease, and this prevents her from connecting with her family circle
again, and intensifies her feeling of not belonging.
Apart from the very cold relationship with her father, Hala does not feel any
connection with her elder sister Latifa either: “It occurs to me that Latifa and I share
nothing, except our mother” (78). For instance, Hala is not even really bothered by her
sister’s cold and sometimes aggressive attitude towards her. She knows that Latifa does
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not like her because she has never been allowed the freedom she is enjoying, and also
because she is lighter than her. Hala adds: “Latifa’s words don’t make me angry. It’s as
if I am watching two people talking as they face a white wall, but I have no connection
to them” (79). Hence, Hala just lets everything pass over her and does not pay much
attention to her sister; she does not even make any effort to have a real conversation
with her or to get involved with her in anything.
Hala has lived for two weeks as a stranger in her own home trying to avoid
arguments with her sister and her father. Unable to connect with the people and places
around her, she finds refuge in her happy memories, almost all of which are associated
with her mother. She is convinced that she is in Jordan only on vacation and she will not
hesitate to defy her father again if he tries to plan her wedding::
I am not ready to marry at all. I know this. And if I stay here, I might
come to feel differently. And then I will be like my mother. The Woman
of Unfulfilled Dreams. Better to be like Uncle Hamdi, The Voice of
Reason and Capitalism. If I stay I will be one of my father’s jokes too. A
joke that makes nobody laugh. (83)
Therefore, for now Hala prefers to escape her father’s authority and the habitual fate of
being a frustrated woman in Jordan. She adds: “I remain unconnected, like a charm
without a chain to hang, I’m happy” (83). Her happiness is related to her ability to
contest her father’s impositions and to refuse to follow the traditions she is not
convinced by. She is aware of the freedom she enjoys, and this brings satisfaction and
happiness to her, as well. Hence, the girl’s disconnection has marked the beginning of
her stay in Jordan until the day she meets her older cousin Sharif who becomes her
connection to her homeland.
Sharif is an important figure of Hala’s childhood who has just come back from
Europe after years of studying and working there. They have not been in contact for
many years, which makes the girl, at the moment of their encounter, expect some
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change to take place. “I feel a wave inside of me, as though a giant change is about to
occur” (119). He offers to take her on tours across Jordan to visit some of the important
spots. “I am a professional tour guide. I would be delighted to reacquaint you with your
homeland. One of your homelands, at least” (120). Sharif expresses his intention to
reconnect Hala with her country and her Arab culture through these planned visits to
places and traditions she seems to have lost touch with.
In the first guided tour, Sharif takes Hala and her sister Latifa to the city of Ajlun
to visit its twelfth century castle. During the drive to Ajlun, Hala starts her real journey
back to her homeland when the surrounding landscape manages to move her. “I watch
the hills and trees and villages, imagining the people who live there, wondering if my
mother thought of her village every time she drove by Jordanian villages. Being away
has made me see the country as more beautiful. I’m even enjoying Latifa” (132). Hence,
going back to this familiar landscape makes the girl think of her mother and of course of
Palestine, which is one of her homelands, as Sharif has stated earlier. In addition, she
starts to feel at ease the moment she lets her senses intertwine with her memories. She
comes to enjoy the experience to the point that she recognizes the beauty of the
landscape and appreciates her sister’s company, which would have been unimaginable a
few hours earlier.
The culmination of Hala’s reconnection with her land in this first trip occurs
when she gets into the castle:
Up and up and up and we reach the highest part of the castle, which looks
out over a small valley. We sit there silently for what seems like a very
long time, legs dangling over the edge and a story here and there to fill
our ears. It is like sitting with the oldest friends in the world, no words
are necessary, but when they come, they are most welcome. For the first
time since I have been back, I feel at peace. (133)
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Hala starts to see everything surrounding her with different eyes, and most importantly
she comes to feel comfortable and at ease thanks to Sharif who is making an effort to
introduce the girl to places and traditions she has lost touch with. Moreover, she
recognizes that the man’s presence has brought about a lot of positive things to her life.
She describes the wind of change that has definitely impacted her perception of
everything: “With this day, a new chapter of my life begins, a new beginning after my
grandmother’s death. Sharif comes over every day to take us somewhere: to the souq,
the mall, visiting friends or relatives, to Jerash, to Ajlun, wherever our hearts desire.
This is the perfect way to come home and taste it all over again” (134).
Therefore, this new chapter that has just started in Hala’s life is related to
Sharif’s presence, that has paved the way for her reconciliation with her past to the point
that she regains peace in her Arab environment and consequently, she finds some
balance between her Arabness and her new American present. The man plays the role of
the intermediary that reconnects the girl with Jordan, the same way that he has done to
little Hala with Palestine. The girl’s memory takes her back to an incident that takes
place on the beach of the city of Aqaba, on the Red Sea, during a family outing. The
twenty-year-old Sharif asks the five-year-old Hala if she wants to go back home. The
following conversation takes place between them:
“Let’s swim home,” he says with his face still in the sun. “Home? This
beach won’t reach to Amman. How can we swim there if there is no
water?” I try to stay still so my shell will come back. “I mean to
Palestine.” He turns to look at me. “We can’t swim to Palestine.” “Why
not? She’s right there.” He points to the right, below the sun. We are so
close that we can see the houses on the shore. “That’s Palestine?” He
nods, still looking, I feel funny inside. “We’re not allowed to go there.
It’s not our home anymore.” The water is very blurry now. “Says who?”
He stares at me with his hands in fists at his waist. (125)
They take a paddleboat and paddle far away from the shore until they are stopped by a
Jordanian military motorboat. The soldiers tell them that they cannot cross the border,
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and if they do so the Israelis will stop and even hurt them. They take them back to the
shore to find the whole family standing there angrily waiting for them. Hala’s mother is
so angry that she starts shouting at Sharif for taking his cousin into such deep waters.
The little girl defends him shouting back and explaining that, “We tried to go home!”
(129). At that moment, her mother softens her tone towards the boy and gently takes her
daughter in her arms.
This episode reveals the complexity of Hala’s sense of belonging as well as the
complex notion of home that has dominated her from an early age and becomes even
more complicated by her stay in the United States. The Aqaba experience makes little
Hala realize that she is not allowed to reach Palestine although she can see it from the
paddle boat. This scene, in fact, makes reference to the Palestinians’ inability to return
to their land due to the actual geopolitical circumstances imposed by the Israeli
colonization. It is actually one of the important themes recurrently dealt with by Halaby,
who explains in an interview that “Palestine has always been central to my writing.
Love of land, loss, exile, forcible removal, the physical beauty of land being bittersweet
because it is so often seen through memory rather than today’s life… these themes have
always intrigued me, especially as they relate to identity” (Salaita 2008: 4).44 Hence,
even Hala’s image of Palestine comes mainly from the portion of it she has seen from
the Jordanian side of the Red Sea as a little girl, together with her mother’s memories
and Sharif’s stories.
It is clear that Sharif has played an important role in developing the girl’s
consciousness about the notion of home. Thanks to him, Hala becomes aware of the
complexity of home in her case, including both Jordan as well as Palestine. Now, Sharif
has even become the symbol of the idea of home and all the positive things related to it
44
Salaita, Steven. “Interview With Laila Halaby.” RAWI Newsletter (Summer 2008)
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taking into account his contribution to Hala’s reconciliation with her homeland. She
realizes that her cousin “is making me see my country in a way I never have” (Halaby
2003:134). In addition, he makes her “become self-conscious, not in a pretty/ugly way,
just aware of myself and my body” (134). Therefore, Hala ends up falling in love with
him because he has made her feel the meaning of belonging to somewhere and being
loved and cared about, to such an extent that her attachment to him and to her homeland
increases every time she goes out with him.
Nevertheless, Hala becomes scared of these growing feelings towards her
cousin, and consequently towards Jordan. She considers that “Sharif is with me more
and more. I feel a smothering feeling; I am losing control. Of what? I am not in love
with him. I need to get away” (136). Even though Hala is delighted by the new feelings
she is experiencing for the first time in her life, her fear of losing control of her
emotions makes her decide to take a break away from Amman, and especially, away
from her cousin. The girl is aware now that her freedom is at risk if she gets closer to
him. She understands that falling in love with Sharif and having a closer relationship
with him would end up in marriage, which would mean staying in Jordan and giving up
her freedom for ever. But Hala does not have the intention of sacrificing the freedom
she is enjoying because it is one of the bonds that deeply attaches her to her mother’s
memory. In fact, this freedom is the result of the struggle started by the mother and then
continued by the daughter.
Therefore, Hala decides to escape and pay a visit to her mother’s uncle Abu
Salwan in the city of Irbid, where she spends some days. During this visit, she has the
opportunity to get immersed, once more, in the heart of Jordan. This experience is so
important as it allows the girl to get to appreciate freedom and Arab culture and
traditions equally. She spends more than a week enjoying family life and her relatives’
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generosity, together with Abu Salwan’s stories and memories about her mother. The
most telling experience during her stay in Irbid is definitely her visit to the ancient
archeological city of Petra with her cousin Fawziyya. Hala is excited about it because
her mother always wanted to visit this city built in the rocks by the Nabateans in 312
BC but never had the opportunity to do it. Then, the girl fulfills one of her mother’s
wishes and she even climbs up to the top to reach the Place of Sacrifice.
Once there, she realizes that it is possible to climb higher and she continues up
with her cousin. “This time it is just a smooth slant of gray-black-purple rocks that look
like nothing I have seen before. We are higher than anything else. We are looking down
on the tops of the other mountains… We are in the sky so high that we are in the same
level as the blue” (156). Reaching the top of the rocks makes Hala amazed by the views
and most importantly by the feeling of being so close to the sky. She feels freedom in its
purest forms, which leads her to take off her clothes and expose her body directly to the
sun. “We let the sun tickle us for what seems like hours, but is probably five or ten
minutes—long enough that our clothes dry” (157).
This experience has led Hala to see many things differently, bringing her close
to her country’s ancient history to take her high enough to reach the sky and in this way
reinforce her appreciation of her freedom. She notices that “a week and a half in Irbid
and I feel I have slept a month and awoken with clear eyes… I am very happy today. I
love to drive in the car and put my hand out the window to catch the breezes” (193).
The girl comes to realize that she can belong to this country and feel proud of its history
and civilization, while at the same time living in the United States. She understands that
her recent closeness to her Arab family values will not prevent her from enjoying
American freedom. Therefore, Hala becomes aware of the possibility of negotiating
both worlds she belongs to and finding a bridge to connect them.
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Back in Amman after this trip, the girl is relieved to learn her father’s final
decision to send her back to the United States in order to finish her studies. She
overhears her father talking to a friend of his about her:
Two months she has been here and I really have no idea what to do with
her, so I am going to put her on a plane back to the States. Hala is a kind
girl and, you are right, very different from the others. She has her
mother’s spirit. I was prepared to marry her to someone – a relative – a
very good man who would have been a good match for her, but imagine
this: he refused me . . . He refused me because he thinks she needs to
choose her own life. ‘If I have true love for her, which I must in order to
marry her, I must allow her to be free. This is why I refuse you.’ Imagine
a man telling a father what to do with his own daughter. (195)
The girl expresses her “gigantic relief” when she says that “I feel I have been granted
the greatest freedom” (197). Nevertheless, she cannot prevent herself from feeling
rejected by the man her father has chosen for her as a husband – Sharif –especially after
she learns that he is about to get engaged to someone else. Hala is surprised by the
anger she is feeling towards her cousin, who has not only turned down her father’s offer
to marry her but also has the intention of marrying another woman. She denies her
feelings once more: “After all, I am not in love with him” (197).
It is important to shed light on Sharif’s refusal to marry Hala based on his belief
that she will not be happy if she stays in Jordan. He gives priority to the girl’s comfort
and happiness over his own feelings. The reason is that he is the one who understands
her most because he has lived an experience similar to hers. As he points out, “I have
explored the world and have come back to settle. You are seeing it for the first time. I
think you have come back to say good-bye” (197). Therefore, Sharif prefers to sacrifice
his love for Hala in order to let her enjoy her freedom and all the experiences and
opportunities waiting for her before she takes the decision to get married. He knows
very well that she would not accept her father and himself making plans and taking
decisions for her. He is aware that he is unable to make Hala happy keeping her in
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Jordan because she does not fit in there anymore. As he tells her, “I am an older man
and I cannot give you what you need. I would be always good to you, I would always
love you, but I am too old to expect what I have to offer you is enough to keep you
happy” (199). Sharif believes that Hala should keep her freedom of choice in order to
fulfill her ambitions as she pleases and break the “Woman of the Unfulfilled Dreams”
tradition.
Despite her absolute rejection of the idea of marriage from the very beginning,
Hala gets confused because of her feelings towards Sharif, on the one hand, and his
rejection of her father’s offer to marry her, on the other. The feeling of rejection does
not allow her to be completely relieved and happy about her father’s decision to let her
go back to the United States. However, Sharif helps her find her way once more as she
decides not to change her plans to return to America to finish her schooling. In fact, it is
relevant to highlight the role played by Sharif in guiding Hala in her trip of
reconciliation with her Arab culture and helping her to find some balance on both sides
of the hyphen. He is the one who has helped her most in this self-search to refresh her
identity and to construct her hybrid character.
Hala’s process of identity negotiation is reflected in her very trip back to
Arizona. To the astonishment of her father, she decides to wear a traditional Palestinian
embroidered roza that had belonged to her mother. “Why must you wear that? You
know it is not appropriate. You are not going to a village or for a visit to someone. You
are flying to America! Miss Modern Lady Who Had Almost No Interest In Dresses
Until Today, why can’t you wear your beloved jeans like you do all the time?” (203).
The girl insists on wearing this roza in particular because it was embroidered by her
grandmother, which symbolizes the continuity of this Palestinian tradition and the
grandmother-mother-daughter connection. It symbolizes as well the girl’s attachment to
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her roots enhanced by the gold charm of Palestine that she wears round her neck and
that Sharif has given to her. Therefore, Hala is not disconnected anymore from her Arab
culture and roots like she has felt in her early days in Jordan. On the contrary, she
becomes so close to her homeland that she tries to carry a bit of it with her to America.
Once in the plane, the girl feels comfortable and confident, unlike during her
outbound flight towards Amman. “I am not at all nervous on this flight. There is no
mystery and no worrying. No one is expecting a face I cannot offer. No, this flight is
quiet” (204). Now Hala is aware of the new experiences that are waiting for her in
America to carry on her process of identity construction and her Third Space
negotiation. She feels that she is a new person willing to have a new start which can
include her Arab homeland and America:
I am starting over, starting over. My mother is always with me. My father
has not abandoned me, and Sharif has introduced me to something
wonderful. It is time to start something new, and something old, not to
fix something unfinished. I will watch just the right way, to see the
underside of things, the thinking things and the forgetting things, as my
mother used to say. And then I will start university, and I will not come
back in disgrace. (204)
Hence, Hala is eager to experience her identity negotiation in her American home with
all the memories and stories she has brought with her from the Arab homeland. She
wants to seal her belonging to these two worlds and cultivate her relations with both.
Her past matters as much as her present because she needs to be close to her Arab roots
and also enjoy her life in the United States. Her mother’s memory is so crucial that she
wants to dedicate her future success to her; in no way will she go back to Jordan in
disgrace.
Hala does not forget her father either who has finally shown his affection for,
and understanding of, his daughter by allowing her to return to America. The girl is
grateful that he comes to understand her and think about what is best for her. She is also
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relieved to know that he is proud of her and that he will always be there for her. The
most important people in Hala’s life after her mother are undoubtedly her father and
Sharif. These two male figures have a very positive impact on the girl’s life. The latter
has shown her the meaning of love and has made possible her reconciliation with her
Arab homeland, while the former has not deprived her from her freedom nor has he
stood as an obstacle to her future in America. The writer here tries to do away with the
generalized image of Arab men who in the West are mostly portrayed as cruel and
violent creatures oppressing women. Moreover, labeling Arab women as subservient to
men does not take into account the individual experiences of millions of them who daily
struggle to release themselves from the restrictions and limitations of traditions.
Therefore, it simplifies the lives of these women and ignores the diversity and richness
of their experiences. Hala is free and not oppressed. She has the freedom to find her
own way and to enjoy her hyphenated experience.
Back in Hamdi and Fay’s house in Arizona, Hala realizes her need to make a
familiar and suitable environment of it. She notices for the first time the bare walls of
the house:
The house is decorated in high-class American style, no knickknacks, no
faded pictures, and no Muhammad mosaics. Neat encyclopedia, nineteen
matching volumes. High-class halogen bulbs. Chairs that make you cross
your legs… High-class American blah, no soul, no colors, only outside
walls that wandered in and stayed. Show-off house with no heart nor
fancy bracelets.
Funny how this never bothered me before, how I almost didn’t notice it.
(217)
Hala here feels bothered by her uncle’s lifeless house, which leaves no room for
imagination because of its white and empty walls devoid of any reference to anything.
This critical perception makes her compare it with her parents’ house in Jordan where
every nook and cranny [was] filled with something: a plant, a book, a
statue, a flower, and every wall was covered with religious plaques,
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calendars, photographs…Always somewhere to look to take you
somewhere else, to make you think. Either a memory resurrected or a
new place to go or a joy to feel. Only way you could not think in our
house would be if you closed your eyes and imagined nothing, which is
impossible. No spare wall space. No place for thoughts to stop. (217)
Hence, Hala compares the sterility of the American decoration with the liveliness of her
Arab home, which reveals her mixed feelings of nostalgia and discomfort. The house
belongs to her uncle Hamdi who “is trying to fit in” (217) and his white American wife
Fay. The girl makes a connection between this high-class American style and whiteness,
realizing, therefore, that she does not feel at home there either.
Hala thus becomes aware that the home she has chosen is not enough for her and
that she cannot fit in. She understands that in order to live in this neat and cold white
house, “I need clutter and memories” (218). In fact, thanks to her memories of the Arab
homeland with all of these people, places and smells, “the white walls are softer” (219).
The girl points out the importance of rescuing her memories in her American home in
order to fill up all the empty spaces:
Remember for yourself and for your tomorrow, my mother used to say.
Remember to make your day new and old, but be sure to think of
something you never thought of before. If you don’t, your life will be like
having your foot stuck in a mouse hole, looks small and harmless, but
holds on tight and won’t let you go until something comes along to
change the landscape.
Hala becomes aware of the importance of her past in order to give a meaning to her
present life, which makes her incorporate some elements related to the Arab homeland
she is longing for now. She spreads the pictures that she has brought with her from
Jordan all over her bedroom; these are pictures of her parents, her sister Latifa, her
grandmother, and of course Sharif. She even gets some posters of Morocco and Egypt
to hang on her walls because they are the closest to Jordan that she has found at the
mall’s travel agency.
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Therefore, the girl’s bedroom has become the site for her memories, which are
an essential part of her identity as well as an important link between her past and
present. Moreover, all of the objects related to her Arab culture that she has gathered in
her bedroom evoke the girl’s past, which plays a crucial role in the determination of her
ongoing process of identity negotiation.
By the evening the bare walls are bearable, lively, different and familiar.
I sit on the floor and stare, then close my eyes. It is deep nighttime in
Amman – and in Nawara – and I have tucked my memories under a
scratchy blanket, wishing them the sweetest dreams as I open my eyes to
a new, but not unfamiliar world. (220)
The girl ends her narrative, as well as the novel, with the formula that she has adopted
to overcome her displacement in order to convert her environment into a familiar and
comfortable place where she intends to put into practice the negotiation of her hybridity.
Hala is eager to enjoy her multilayered identity in the United States while not forgetting
anything she has left behind in Jordan as well as Palestine.
West of the Jordan projects a gallery of female characters whose stories reflect
the heterogeneity of Arab American women and the multiplicity of their experiences.
Laila Halaby proposes identification options for her four young protagonists whose
identities, while they negotiate their spaces in diaspora, are shaped and re-shaped on a
daily basis. In an interview published on the Beacon Press website, Halaby states that
“each one has had to deal with a blow to her security blanket, which has in turn
launched her into adulthood or at least into accepting responsibility, or ownership, for
where she is in life. Each one has learned about herself and her history and has had to
come to terms with it a bit more.”45 While these young women tell their stories, their
different perspectives and opinions reflect their differing experiences and their multiple
45
http://www.beacon.org/Assets/ClientPages/WestOfTheJordanrg.aspx#interview
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cultural identities. Hence, the novel displays the writer’s intention to challenge the
widespread homogeneous depiction of Arab women in mainstream American
consciousness and correct the stereotypical portrayals of Arab women as static and
helpless submissive beings. The novel brings to light the unheard stories and
experiences of a whole community through the freshness of these young protagonists.
These teenagers, actually, stand for thousands of young women who represent the new
generations of Arab American women, and whose stories are an essential component of
the memory of the whole Arab American community.
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CHPATER 4
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CHAPTER 4
CRESCENT AND THE CREATIVE STRATEGIES OF RESISTANCE
The manuscript for Crescent (2003) was submitted days before 9/11. After the
terrorist attacks, Diana Abu-Jaber thought about setting the book aside due to her doubts
about the American audience’s reception of a novel about Iraq, and the beauty of Arab
civilization, poetry, music and food, while she herself was receiving flyers under the
door of her Portland University office about rounding up the Arabs. She decided,
however, to go on with the project, so Crescent was published in April 2003, curiously
when Baghdad was being bombed by U.S. forces. These inauspicious circumstances
that accompanied the birth of this novel added more significance to its content.
Crescent was highly acclaimed by both Arab and Arab American critics as they
dubbed it as lush, timely, and wise. Tired of the American public ignorance of the
politics and culture of the Middle East, Abu-Jaber challenges the negative American
media portrayal of Arabs, through a story of love, jealousy and betrayal, of searching
for a sense of belonging in a new country, but with roots in the old, all mingled with the
beauty of storytelling and the delicious Middle Eastern cuisine. The novel is set in Los
Angeles, in the neighborhood of “Teherangeles” inhabited by a large number of Iranians
and some other Middle Easterners. The central character is Sirine, a thirty-nine-year-old
Iraqi American who lives with her uncle and works as a chef at an Arab restaurant,
Nadia’s Café, owned by the Lebanese Um-Nadia. In the course of the novel, she falls in
love with Hanif El-Eyad (Han), an Iraqi exile who works as a professor of linguistics at
UCLA University. The novel revolves around their romance and the consequent
negotiations of Arab and American identities and culture, with the diverse collection of
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characters from different ethnic backgrounds around them contributing to such
negotiations.
Crescent (2003) is a hybrid novel whose structure is based on two main
elements: Sirine’s cuisine and her uncle’s storytelling. In this way, the novel moves
easily between the classic narration of oral Arabic tradition and modern Western fiction
in order to question misconceptions about Arabs in American literature and popular
culture. Abu-Jaber depicts the experiences of Arabs and Arab American characters and
emphasizes their hyphenated identities as Arabs and as Americans, thus engaging with
the problems that the members of her community encounter. Steven Salaita highlights
the importance of the Arab American presence in the American context and argues that
“artistic growth can play a crucial role in the external interpretation, acceptance, and
humanization of Arab Americans and the Arab people as a whole.”46
Hence, the main aim of this chapter is to explore Abu-Jaber’s creative strategies
of resistance to the mainstream rigid and narrow portrayal of Arabs in the United States,
taking into account the complexity of the context in which Arab American writers are
producing their work. The writer challenges these widespread stereotypes and
misconceptions of the members of the Arab American community, which play an
important role in the marginalization of the group in America’s political, social and
cultural contexts. I will, therefore, examine the alternative representations offered by the
novelist in order to challenge these stereotypical depictions. Moreover, I will probe the
in-between spaces provided by the novel where the hybrid characters articulate their
selfhood and search for strategies of negotiation. Then, I will investigate the role of
food as a human connector bridging differences within and between ethnic
communities.
Salaita, Steven. “Vision: Arab-American Literary Criticism,” Al Jadid Magazine, 8 (2002).
< http://www.aljadid.com/content/vision-arab-american-literary-criticism >
46
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4.1 Crescent’s Engagement with the Issue of the Image of Arabs in the
United States
In the first chapter of this dissertation, I tried to trace the Arab American
experience in the United States from the end of the nineteenth century until today. I
have also tried to trace the historical circumstances which have led to the present
negative media representations of Arabs in America. The main consequence of this long
process of tutoring U.S. audiences about the evil Arab “Other” is that the Arab
American community has been reduced to a handful of essentialist constructions and
negative stereotypes that conceal its complexity and diversity. In fact, “All we can see
on the TV and movies about Arabs is they’re shooting someone, or kidnapping
someone… Those are the choices. The only lines they get to say are: ‘Shut up and sit
down!’ (Abu-Jaber 2003: 188). In this context, Crescent (2003) echoes Jack Shaheen’s
study about most Hollywood movies which “effectively show all Arabs, Muslims, and
Arab-Americans as being at war with the United States” (2003: 172). He adds that
these “rigid and repetitive portraits narrow [the audience’s] vision and blur reality”
(2000: 26). More importantly, he warns us about the dangerous and growing effect if
these images remain unchallenged.
Abu-Jaber is aware of this reality which leads her to touch on this issue since at
the very beginning of her novel when she mentions the story of the former owner of
Nadia’s Café, an Egyptian cook. During the Gulf War of 1991, the Café started to be
visited on a daily basis by two men in business suits who used to just observe the
Middle Eastern students and take notes, so “people started whispering: C. I. A.” (AbuJaber 2003: 8). Gradually, the number of customers got reduced and the business failed:
One day, after a month of sitting at the counter, the two men took the
cook aside and asked if he knew of any terrorist schemes developing in
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the Arab American community. The poor man’s eyes grew round, his
hands grew slippery with sweat and cooking grease, he squeezed his
spatula till it hurt his palm; he saw the twin images of his own frightened
face in the dark lenses of one of the stranger’s glasses. He’d never heard
of such a thing in his life. He and his wife liked to watch Colombo at
night: that was all he knew about intrigues or crime. He thought he was
living in America. (8)
Abu-Jaber here highlights the environment of skepticism that follows each crisis that
occurs in the Middle East as every Arab/Arab American becomes the target of rejection
and suspicion. So this Egyptian cook realizes that America is not the land of freedom he
expected it to be, at least not for him and his fellow Arabs, just through the mere fact of
being who they are. Here, again, it is important to remember mainstream American
media which
represents Arab Americans and Muslim Americans in a manner that
mostly operates to differentiate them from other Americans. The
ordinariness of and internal differences among Arab Americans and
Muslim Americans is at time subtly and at time crassly subverted through
a series of direct and indirect associations and representations, the effects
of which are to essentialize and racialize Arab Americans and Muslim
Americans and represent them in their “collective,” essentialized
identities, rather than their individualities or differences. (Joseph,
D’Harlingue and Wong, 234)
Therefore, this differentiation of Arabs and Arab Americans undermines the nonprejudiced vision of America as a land of immigrants. After all, not all immigrants are
equal, especially if they have an Arab background.
Sirine often thinks about the story of the former Egyptian owner of the
restaurant, “Sometimes she used to scan the room and imagine the word terrorist. But
her gaze ran over the faces and all that came back to her were words like lonely and
young” (Abu-Jaber 2003: 8). The writer here challenges the almost automatic
identification of Arabs with terrorism in the American imagination, classifying them, in
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this way, as the enemy. But Sirine is unable to identify that enemy among the regulars
of Um-Nadia’s Café as she looks at them beyond the stereotypes. She thinks that
“everything about these young men seemed infinitely vulnerable and tender” (8),
because they are just students and immigrants suffering from being away from home.
Abu-Jaber even makes a humorous diagnosis of what she calls “the Arab disease” that
is “where you keep thinking the C. I. A. is following you around” (106). In this way,
she comes to the realization of how difficult it is to be an Arab nowadays: “No one ever
wants to be the Arab—it’s too old and too tragic and too mysterious and too
exasperating and too lonely for anyone but an actual Arab to put up with for very long.
Essentially, it’s an image problem” (38).
Hence, the novel’s engagement with this image issue that faces the Arab
American community is illustrated in its attempt to demonstrate the unfairness of
stereotyping Arabs and Arab Americans through the alternative gallery of varied
characters it presents. The novel claims a space for the Arab American community
within the larger multicultural mosaic of American society. Thus, Abu-Jaber
deconstructs the stereotyped representations of Arabs and Arab Americans in the
American imaginary and provides, instead, what she considers fairer images of them.
She presents, for instance, the urbane intellectual Arab man, who is rarely portrayed in
American media, through the characters of Han the professor, for instance.
One of the Café’s regulars, Han is a distinguished exiled Iraqi scholar who has
just joined UCLA. He is presented as a successful, charismatic and handsome man who
“frequently has an entourage of students in his wake, young men – and some women –
who tentatively follow him, asking his opinion of things” (11). He has attracted Sirine’s
attention since his first visits to the restaurant. “Her main impressions of Hanif are of
his hair, straight and shiny as black glass, and of a faint tropical sleepiness to his eyes.
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And there is his beautiful, light accented, fluid voice, dark as chocolate. His accent has
nuances of England and Eastern Europe, like a complicated sauce” (11). This depiction
of Han contrasts with the common representations of Arab male characters in American
media. As Shaheen argues, characters representing Arab men in Hollywood all look the
same: “Black beard, headdress, dark sunglasses. In the background – a limousine,
harem maidens, oil wells, camels. Or perhaps he is brandishing an automatic weapon,
crazy hate in his eyes and Allah on his lips” (2008: 172). Thus, Abu-Jaber gives Han a
totally different image from that familiar to the American audience when she presents
him as an attractive man, as well as an admirable lover and academic. He even shows
his respect for Um-Nadia every time they meet, bowing to her and kissing her hands.
Abu-Jaber points to the experience of exile through the character of Han who
describes himself as a “ghazal” or an oryx which “is always wandering, looking for his
lost love, and they say he has to go away before he can find his way home again” (AbuJaber 2003: 29). In an interview with Andrea Shalal-Esa, Abu-Jaber talks about exile:
I feel that especially in the political gestalt we’re in right now, exile has
become a particularly pointed question, more so than immigration.
Immigration, at least from the Arab American point of view, was just
more innocent and – I don’t want to say naive – but it had a kind of
hopefulness and optimism that wasn’t as charged by issues of race and
politics as it is now. Particularly for Palestinians and Iraqis, a lot of them
are not choosing to emigrate, but rather they’re fleeing political
persecution or they’ve lost their homes. It’s an act that is not entirely of
their own volition. I’m very interested in what the loss of a homeland
means for someone. (5)
According to Edward Said, “exile is strangely compelling to think about but terrible to
experience. It is the unhealable rift forced between a human being and a native place,
between the self and its true home: its essential sadness can never be surmounted”
(2000: 171). Seen in this light, Crescent (20003) sets out to give a human face to the
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Iraqi exile experience through Han, who since an early age has “never [felt] entirely
safe, always wanting to run far away” (Abu-Jaber 2003: 63). When Sirine asks him if he
thinks that he could live there, in America, he replies: “That’s what I’m trying to find
out” (60). His answer reveals that, despite all the terrifying memories he holds from his
childhood and youth, he is actually never entirely away from Iraq.
Hanif is haunted by the memories of his homeland as he frequently thinks back
to the different phases of his life there. He remembers the poor household where he was
brought up and his parents’ economic difficulties preventing them from affording a
comfortable life for their children, Hanif, his brother Arif and his sister Leila. In spite of
that, he was a gifted student who worked hard and even “sat under the street lamps
outside to do his studying because they couldn’t afford electricity” (205). At the age of
fourteen, his parents accepted the offer made by an American woman, with whom he
secretly had an affair, to give him the opportunity to attend a boarding school in Cairo
and to cover all the necessary expenses. He points out that this “was my first escape
from Iraq” (220).
Back in Baghdad after spending five years in Cairo, Han feels alienated in his
own home:
I came back from Cairo obsessed with just about everything cultural –
literature, painting, drama… I said and did as much as I could to cause
my parents as much unhappiness as possible. I was always angry with
them – I felt as if I had gone on to a new place in my life while they had
remained stubbornly behind. Now I saw our poverty all around us –
everything – the dirt floor in our house, the wrapped glass in our
windows – all of it offended me. At night the sky flashed with bombs; it
was impossible to sleep. I had nightmares of flying in pieces through the
air. (281)
Han recognizes that during his Cairo experience, “I grew out of the curve of my family
and home. Maybe I turned into something different than I was born to be” (220). After
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being spared the hardships endured by his peers in his native Iraq, it was not easy for
him to get adapted again to the life he had left behind. In the same year that he returned
to Baghdad, Saddam Hussein took over, and in the following year declared war on the
neighboring Iran. In this case, home has not changed that much during his absence, but
he is the one who is not the same anymore. After having access to an exquisite Western
education and enjoying a vibrant cultural life in Cairo, he came back to the same poor
household. Consequently, all the dreams he had had during his private school years got
crushed by the reality of dictatorship and war. All of his aspirations for freedom were
suppressed by Saddam Hussein’s regime, which led him to start writing against it in an
underground newspaper under the pseudonym of Ma’al. When the security police learnt
about these dissident writings, they assaulted his parents’ house looking for him. They
arrested his twelve-year-old brother who identified himself as Ma’al in order to cover
him. Later, his sister got arrested as well and then killed. Hanif ended up escaping to
England.
Thus, Han’s exilic experience is interwoven with these traumatic memories of
persecution and oppression. Moreover, it is marked by the feeling of guilt about what
happened to his family because of him, and more importantly about his inability to
return to Iraq to help them. After twenty years in exile, he does not even know if his
brother is still alive, which makes his exilic experience “so painful. The frustration. And
just not knowing” (109). He further explains that “the fact of exile is bigger than
everything else in my life” (152) because it delineates the very meaning of his own
existence. This fact is so painful to the point that “there’s some part of me that can’t
quite grasp the thought of never returning. I have to keep reminding myself. It’s so hard
to imagine. So I just tell myself: not yet” (52). For him, home is what Avtar Brah refers
to as a “mythic place and a place of no return” (1996: 192). Therefore, in spite of Han’s
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awareness about the impossibility of returning to Baghdad, he is unable to thoroughly
live his American experience because his imagination is constantly taking him to Iraq
and then back to America, and the other way round. As Edward Said explains “for an
exile, habits of life, expression, or activity in the new environment inevitably occur
against the memory of these things in another environment. Thus both the new and the
old environments are vivid, actual, occurring together contrapuntally” (2000: 186).
So, when Sirine asks him to tell her about Iraq, he describes his homeland
through “a feeling.” He explains:
It’s like sometimes I feel like I can sense the ghosts of all sorts of
invisible cities and places that used to be there, on that land – the
Chaldean Empire and the Hanging Gardens of Babylon and – I’m not
telling this very well. The night there seems to start two thousand years
ago, it’s so light and dry – a bit like this night… And then there’s my
parents’ house. (Abu-Jaber 2003: 63)
Despite all the alienating experiences undergone in his home country, Han expresses his
deep attachment to it. “I miss everything, Sirine. Absolutely everything” (51). He insists
that Iraq has to be felt and experienced through the senses. Therefore, Crescent (2003)
aims to humanize not only the Iraqi exiles through the figure of Han, but also all the
characters he mentions in his stories and memories about his homeland. Abu-Jaber
presents a humanized image of Iraq, a country omnipresent on TV news in American
houses but which is totally absent from the American imagination. In the Iraq depicted
in this novel, there are still bombs, secret police and Saddam Hussein, but they are
limited to the periphery of the story. The country is highlighted as the “cradle of
civilization” through the exploration of the richness of its culture and history. The
whole novel, indeed, conveys the idea of the cultural wealth and legacy of Iraq, and the
Arab world in general.
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Abu-Jaber reveals this intention of hers in the very opening of the novel when
she writes: “Nothing is as black and as ancient as the night in Baghdad. It is dark and
fragrant as the hanging gardens of the extinct city of Chaldea, as dark and still as the
night in the uppermost chamber of the spiraling Tower of Babel” (3). The writer insists
on the ancient civilizations in Iraq, Mesopotamia or the land between the rivers, the
world’s oldest civilization where mankind invented the first writing system in history.
Some of the hallmarks of the ancient civilization of that part of the world, apart from
writing, are agriculture, urbanization and laws. In this context, “Legal theory flourished
and was sophisticated early on, being expressed in several collections of legal decisions,
the so-called codes, of which the best known is the code of Hammurabi” (Kuiper, 22).
Hammurabi (1810 BC – 1750 BC) was the king of Babylonia who promulgated one of
the first written laws in the world. The code was inscribed in a stele and placed in a
public place where everybody could see it.
I would like here to open a personal parenthesis related to Hammurabi’s code, in
particular, which has an emotional importance for me as it takes me back to my
childhood when my father provided me with a number of books for kids to read. Some
of them revolved around Hammurabi’s code through the different stories of the
inhabitants of Babylon who found justice thanks to these laws. Later, during a visit to
the Louvre Museum in Paris as an adult, I came across the Stele of Hammurabi by
chance, not knowing that it was there. I still remember that moment when I first saw it,
and I could not believe my eyes to find in front of me the original code about which I
had read so much as a child. In this sense, Crescent (2003) has succeeded in returning to
me some of my happy childhood memories related to my first contact with the ancient
civilization of a country called Iraq.
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From another perspective, I believe in the vital importance of highlighting Iraq’s
historical heritage especially nowadays due to the destruction we have witnessed, in the
last few months, of some of the country’s most important archeological treasures at the
hands of the fanatic members of the auto-proclaimed Islamic State of Iraq and Levant,
ISIL. The world has watched in horror the destruction of priceless three thousand-yearold artifacts in Iraq’s second oldest museum in Mosul by sledgehammers and power
drills, and later the demolition by bulldozers and explosives of some excavated remains
of Nimrud, an Assyrian city dating back to the thirteenth century before Christ. In fact,
it is humanity’s heritage as a whole which is at risk.
Han continues describing his homeland, emphasizing its cultural richness: “Iraq
is endless… There’s the Euphrates River going one way, the Tigris in another. In
Baghdad the Tigris is like a reflecting mirror under all the tall buildings. The gold and
turquoise mosques with their big courtyards, all the libraries and museums, the great
wooden doors and massive gates” (62-63). Baghdad is engraved in the memory of Han
who tries to transport Sirine into a kind of virtual visit to see every garden, every street
and every building. Overwhelmed by nostalgia, he traces a map of Iraq with his finger
on Sirine’s hands and arms introducing her to her father’s homeland and providing her
with details about the daily life of the city:
This is Baghdad here. And here is Tahrir Square… At the foot of the
Jumhurriya Bridge. The center of everything. All the main streets run out
from this spot. In this direction and that direction, there are wide busy
sidewalks and the apartments piled up on top of shops, men in business
suits, women with strollers, street vendor selling kabobs, eggs, fruit
drinks. There’s the man with his cart who sold me rolls sprinkled with
thyme and sesame every morning and then saluted me like a soldier. And
there’s this one street… It just goes and goes, all the way from Baghdad
to Paris. (66)
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In this way, Abu-Jaber takes the reader to the busy streets of Baghdad in order to offer
insights into the city’s everyday life with its ordinary people going to work or shopping,
and women with baby strollers. She tries to provide an air of ordinariness and normality
to her portrayal of Iraq which is obviously very different from the images diffused in
American media. Hence, she is giving human faces to the people of Iraq and the Arab
world in general.
In her attempts to modify the stereotypical images of Arabs in the United States,
Abu-Jaber uses her characters’ closeness to the academic circle of the nearby university
in order to shed light on Arab literature and arts. A nation’s literature is the expression
of its people. It is an art which entertains and instructs. In this sense, “The literature of
the world is the foot-prints of human progress… It is not merely the record of a
country’s mental progress: it is the expression of its intellectual life, the bond of
national unity, and the guide of national energy” (Dewart, ix). Hence, Abu-Jaber intends
to highlight another aspect which is generally ignored in American mainstream media,
which is the extensive variety of literature in Arabic. The novel’s literary references are
not restricted to any particular Arab country.
The writer’s choice to start with poetry can be considered as her own way to
celebrate the long Arab poetic tradition. Therefore, she takes the reader to a poetry
reading by a certain Syrian poet called Aziz Abdo. Switching between Arabic and
English, “His poems conjure up the image of an old man sweeping the streets in
Baghdad, Jerusalem and Damascus. Sirine sees trees filled with birdcages, sparkling
with colored songbirds. She sees sinewy sands, palm trees bending in the sky. These
sound like places she might like to visit” (Abu-Jaber 2003: 17). As Han has anticipated
in his introduction of the poet, Aziz manages to carry the audience “unconscious,
through language, into our purest dream” (16). He “closes with a line that he says comes
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from a famous poet whom he refers to as his spiritual mentor: ‘Let the beauty we love
be what we do. There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground’” (16). This
line, which belongs actually to the Sufi Persian philosopher Rumi, has added an air of
mysticism and beauty to the reading, blurring the lines between Middle-Eastern
cultures, and consequently, between their corresponding communities in the United
States.
In another episode of the novel, Abu-Jaber transports the reader to one of Han’s
classes at the university on contemporary Arab writers that Sirine has attended once.
When she gets into the classroom she sees the names of Ahdaf Soueif, 47 Emile Habiby48
and Naguib Mahfouz are written on the blackboard. The class revolves around the
Egyptian writer Naguib Mahfouz, who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1988. Han
reminds the students of “an old expression in the Arab world that ‘Cairo writes, Beirut
publishes, and Baghdad reads’” (87) in order to stress the importance of literature on the
one hand, and the complicity and complementarity of Arab capitals in the literary field,
on the other. He considers that Mahfouz is the inheritor of “ancient Arab traditions of
arts and poetry” (87), comparing him with the writers of the Abbaside period.49 He
concludes that “Mahfouz exemplifies the Abbaside Arab ‘Renaissance man,’ if you
will– both politically and artistically sophisticated and socially aware” (87).
Thus, Abu-Jaber makes use of Arab literary and cultural references throughout
her novel in a way that passionately evokes the Arab homeland. She celebrates the
richness of Arab culture portraying that part of the world as the site of a long literary
tradition continuing to the present. In this way, mentioning Naguib Mahfouz, for
47
Ahdaf Soueif is an Egyptian writer who was born in 1950. She writes mostly in English. Her second
novel The Map of Love (1999) was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in the United Kingdom.
48
Emile Habiby (1922-1996) was a Palestinian and an Arab Israeli writer of Arabic expression. His first
novel The Secret Life of Saeed the Pessoptimist (1972) is a classic of Arab literature.
49
The Abbaside Caliphate ruled the Islamic world from 750 to 1258 AD and founded their capital
Baghdad in 762. It is commonly referred to as the golden age of the Islamic civilization. Under the rule of
the fifth caliph of the dynasty Harun Al-Rashid (786-809), Baghdad became the world’s most important
center for science, philosophy, medicine and education, as he supported artists, scholars and scientists.
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instance, is part of this strategy, showing that the Arab world also has its own Nobel
Prize laureate in literature. Moreover, the writer makes reference to Baghdad’s literary
clubs, along with poetic verses scattered throughout the novel by poets such as Adonis,
Abdul Wahab Al-Bayati and Mahmoud Darwish. The novel even portrays American
characters who are interested in the Arab world and its culture. Hence, Nathan, the
photographer, describes his experience in Iraq:
I went to the Middle-East without any idea of who I was – there was no
needle on my compass, you know? But the people in Iraq – this sounds
dumb and romantic – but the thing is they really seemed to know who
they were. They dressed the way their grandparents dressed, they ate the
way they’ve eaten for hundreds of years. And they were so alive – I
mean, lots of them didn’t have TV or telephones, but everyone talked
about politics, art, religion, you name it. They were living under a
dictatorship but their inner selves stayed alive – do you see? (77)
Here again, Abu-Jaber stresses the cultural heritage of Iraq, portraying it as the home of
a deep-rooted people issuing from ancient civilizations, in contrast with countries like
the United States, in this case. She pays tribute to Iraqis presenting them as cultivated
and educated people who appreciate culture. Even dictatorship did not manage to kill
their spirit as it did not prevent them from engaging in cultural activities.
In addition to literature, it is important to mention the presence of Arabic music
in the novel. For instance, Lon Hyden, the chairman of the Near Eastern Studies
Department at the university, organizes a party in his house where people from different
backgrounds are invited. In this party, “Middle Eastern violins and flutes swirl and
swoosh through the air” (31). One of the guests declares that this is “Simon Shaheen
plays Mohammed Abdul Wahab – I know Lon’s favorites” (31). Shaheen is a
Palestinian American oud player and composer, and in this record he pays a tribute to
the famous Egyptian singer and composer Mohammed Abdul Wahab (1902-1991).
Abu-Jaber here uses Arab songs as background music for an American party, and
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shows that both American and non-American people can enjoy this music: “Sirine sees
Um-Nadia grab the Russian Studies professor, Zinovy Basilevich, and starts propelling
him around the pool in a shimmying, complicated dance. The big ginger-mustached
professor looks frightened and happy” (31).
In addition, Crescent (2003) brings the angelic voice of the Lebanese Diva
Fairuz, who is, by the way, one of my favorite singers. Fairuz’s voice creates a musical
framework for the first date between the lovers in Han’s apartment. Sirine, who does
not know the singer, is impressed by her voice: “How lovely… What a lovely voice she
has” (60). This iconic chanteuse has been part of Lebanon’s cultural fabric for years.
She is also referred to as the “Morning’s Diva”50 because she has entered the everyday
lives of people not only in Lebanon but across the Arab world, when every morning her
celestial voice visits every Arab house for at least half an hour as if it is a morning
prayer. Many generations of Arabs, including myself, have been starting their day with
Fairuz, whose morning songs have come to represent a fresh new day.
I remember when I used to switch on the radio early in the morning while I was
still in bed because I did not want to miss Fairuz’s playlist of the day. I usually
remained in bed, sometimes dozing off, which resulted in the sweet feeling of having
her songs in my morning dreams. When I moved to Madrid about thirteen years ago, the
first music CD that I bought, curiously, was one by Fairuz. Moreover, her songs
provided the background music for the many Tunisian dinners – with couscous as a
main course – that I used to prepare for my Spanish and international friends. For all of
these reasons, it has been so agreeable to find Fairuz in this novel, and bring to the
surface many pleasant memories of my life both in Tunisia and Spain.
50
In arabic: ‫ سيدة الصباح‬sayidatu assabah.
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For all of these reasons, Fairuz is much more than a singer, as she has become
the symbol of Lebanon who brings all the Lebanese people together no matter what
religious or ethnic group they belong to. In this way, during the fifteen years of the
Lebanese civil war, from 1975 to 1990, she never took sides and remained in Lebanon,
which somehow contributed to the alleviation of the Lebanese people’s suffering with
many of her songs about home and exile as well as hope that would bring back the
desired peace to lovely Lebanon. Hence, she symbolizes the courage and determination
of the Lebanese people whose lives were dominated by this war.
To get back to the novel, Han tells Sirine about the song that Fairuz’s vibrant
voice is chanting: “This song is called ‘Andaloussiya.’ It was a place where the
Muslims and Jews lived together and devised miraculous works of philosophy and
architecture. All the sorts of things that people get up to when you leave them in the sun
together” (60). Therefore, while embellishing her novel with the beautiful presence of
Fairuz’s songs, Abu-Jaber makes reference to Al-Andalus’s legacy of coexistence
between the three religions during the Arab rule of parts of the Iberian Peninsula from
711 to 1492. Despite the attempts to overtly romanticize or, on the contrary, to question
its legacy, Al Andalus remains a shining period of Arab civilization and an important
phase of Islamic history. It was a place of interchange and a meeting point of cultures,
races and religions, in which a tradition of tolerance and coexistence created a radiant
society in the Middle Ages. Thus, in her efforts to discredit the common
misrepresentations of Arabs and their culture in the United States, Abu-Jaber makes use
of many examples of Arab history in order to introduce new perspectives for
mainstream American readers to approach this part of the world. She uses the past so as
to correct the mistakes of the present. In this respect, Edward Said argues that “Every
writer is, of course, a reader of her or his predecessors as well, but what I want to
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underline is that often surprising dynamics of human history… dramatize the latencies
in a prior figure or form that suddenly illuminate the present” (2003: 25)
4.2 Nadia’s Café: The re-creation of home in the ethnic borderland
This Arab restaurant is portrayed as a space which has created its own micro
culture and has become the symbol of a recreated home to which Arab students,
teachers, exiles and immigrants flock. Thus, Abu-Jaber draws attention, by setting her
novel around a café, to the fact that “cafés create their own cultural environment, their
own micro cultures” (Shalal-Esa 2002: 5). In this light, Svetlana Boym states that “to
feel at home is to know that things are in their places and so are you; it is a state of mind
that does not depend on actual location. The object of longing, then, is not really a place
called home but this sense of intimacy with the world” (251). Therefore, the notion of
home is more than a geographical place because it is actually related to familiarity,
closeness and intimacy with the elements that contribute to the making of a home. In
other words, home is where a person feels familiar with the surroundings. In this way,
Nadia’s Café provides its customers with the familiarity and intimacy of their lost
homelands that they are missing in the United States.
According to the yellowing newspaper reviews hung on the Café’s wall, it is
“Aladdin’s hidden treasure!” or “The Middle East in Westwood” (Abu-Jaber 2003: 48).
It is, as well, a place where Arab students and immigrants come to enjoy “Real True
Arab Food” (9). In this context, “there is even a framed and signed glossy photograph of
Casey Kasem, who once stopped by the café to eat and proclaimed that they made the
best mjeddrah in town” (48). Likewise, Abu-Jaber portrays the restaurant as a place
which has received praise for the food served there from prominent Arab American
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personalities such as the famous Lebanese American radio star Casey Kasem, 51 for
instance. Similarly, the Café is a special place welcoming Arab Americans as well as
Arab immigrants and students where they can find an atmosphere which reminds them
of their homelands:
At Nadia’s Café, there is a TV tilted in the corner above the cash register,
permanently tuned to the all-Arabic station, with news from Qatar,
variety shows and a shopping channel from Kuwait, endless Egyptian
movies, Bedouin soap operas in Arabic, and American soap operas with
Arabic subtitles. There is a group of regulars who each have their favorite
shows and dishes and who sit at the same tables as consistently as if they
were assigned. . . . There are students who come religiously, appearing at
the counter with their newspapers almost every day for years, until the
day they graduate and disappear, never to be seen again. And then there
are students who never graduate. (10)
Nadia’s Café echoes Homi Bhabha’s notion of “gathering” spaces where
immigrants and exiles come together in a host country, and that he has experienced
himself. He writes that he has “lived that moment of the scattering of the people that in
other times and other places, in the nations of others, becomes a time of gathering. He
adds:
Gatherings of exiles and émigrés and refugees, gathering on the edge of
“foreign” cultures; gathering at the frontiers; gatherings in the ghettos of
cafés of city centers; gathering in the half-life, half-light of foreign
tongues, or in the uncanny fluency of another’s language; gathering the
signs of approval and acceptance, degrees, discourses, disciplines;
gathering the memories of underdevelopment, of other worlds lived
retroactively; gathering the past in a ritual of revival; gathering the
present. (291)
So, for the clientele, Nadia’s Café serves as a site for gathering and a reconstruction of
the longed-for old home in the new country.
51
Casey Kasem (1932-2014) was a famous disc jockey and radio personality born in Detroit, Michigan,
to Lebanese Druze parents. He co-created and hosted “American Top 40” in 1970, which counted down
the forty most popular songs in the United States. The syndicated show quickly became the countdown of
thousands of radio stations around the world.
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Many of these regulars point out the difficulty of making American friends,
which converts the café into a homelike haven connecting them with people from their
own culture and living in the same conditions as them:
Occasionally, a student would linger at the counter talking to Sirine. He
would tell her how painful it is to be an immigrant – even if it was what
he’d wanted all his life. Americans, he would tell her, don’t have the time
or the space in their lives for the sort of friendship – days of coffeedrinking and talking – that the Arab students craved. (Abu-Jaber 2003: 910)
The student’s feelings about America and his homeland echo the double meaning of
homesickness presented by Susan Friedman. She rightly notes that “homesickness too is
a cryptogram; the word opens up into opposites: sick for home and sick of home” (191).
In this context, immigrants end up longing for home and feeling nostalgic after all the
efforts they have made to leave it. Moreover, the student here refers to the role of
coffeehouses in the Middle East as an important social gathering place for men where
they can spend long hours drinking coffee or tea, playing chess or other board games,
and listening to music, among other social activities. He regrets that American people
do not actually have time for this kind of activity in the cafés. As a matter of fact, “For
many of them [Um-Nadia’s] café was a little flavor of home” (Abu-Jaber 2003: 10).
The Café can be considered one of what Pierre Nora calls “lieux de mémoire” or
sites of memory, which, according to him, are useful in the evocation of the past
because “there is no spontaneous memory” (12) and they are permeated by a “symbolic
aura” (19). Nora explains that,
Lieux de mémoire are simple and ambiguous, natural and artificial, at
once immediately available in concrete sensual experience and
susceptible to the most abstract elaboration. Indeed, they are lieux in
three senses of the word – material, symbolic, and functional. Even an
apparently purely material site, like an archive, becomes a lieu de
mémoire only if the imagination invests it with a symbolic aura. A purely
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functional site, like a classroom manual, a testament, or a veterans'
reunion belongs to the category only inasmuch as it is also the object of a
ritual. (18-19)
Going to the Café is in itself a ritual that the customers deliberately and regularly
practice, investing, in this way, their time and money with the intention of keeping in
touch with their homelands, the memories of which are materialized through the food,
the TV shows, the news, the conversations and the people, among other things.
Therefore, the Café is a small re-creation of the Arab home in Los Angeles which
revives the customers’ memories and alleviates their estrangement and loneliness.
These students, exiles and immigrants who regularly visit the Café feel lonely,
not only because they have left their countries of origin but also because they are trying
to settle down in a country where Arabs are not welcomed. While they have difficulties
being accepted in their adopted home and making American friends, they are aware of
the negative perception of their people and countries in America. Consequently, the
Café becomes a homelike sanctuary where they can find a familiar environment and
people who understand them and listen to their stories. In addition, gatherings in the
Café allow its immigrant regulars to get updated with the current events in the Middle
East through the Arabic TV channels that they watch there as well as the discussions
they engage in. This intimate atmosphere provides them with the opportunity to express
in their own language their frustrations and worries about the instability in the Middle
East and the wars continually breaking out there, and their consequences on their own
conditions as Arabs in America.
While most of the clients are not happy with American foreign policy and its
role in the political turmoil in the region, they cannot prevent themselves from longing
for the opportunities and freedom that America offers them, after all. For this reason,
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they perceive the Café’s chef Sirine as the bridge between their lost homelands and their
new adopted home:
They love her food – the flavors that remind them of their homes – but
they also love to watch Sirine with her skin so pale it has the bluish cast
of skim milk, her wild blond head of hair, her sea-green eyes… She is so
kind and gentle-voiced and her food is so good that the students cannot
help themselves – they sit at the tables, leaning toward her. (7)
The Iraqi American Sirine with her American looks and her Middle Eastern cooking
alleviates the alienation of the Café regulars while she introduces them to American
culture. In this respect, the Syrian poet Aziz asserts that her “cooking reveals America
to us non-Americans. And vice versa” (187). Therefore, while Sirine reminds them of
their Arab origins and enhances their ties with their culture, she reminds them as well of
the America they yearn to enjoy and seize the opportunity to experience.
Apart from the regulars with an Arab background, Um-Nadia’s Café is also
frequented by people with different ethnic affiliations, converting it into an important
gathering place. The mere location of this Lebanese restaurant makes of it the site of
inter-ethnic interactions in the novel. Abu-Jaber explains that when she was a guest
lecturer at UCLA, back in 1995, and she started thinking about writing Crescent (2003),
“there really is this little Lebanese café in the heart of the section of town they called the
Tarantula. I remember thinking – how interesting, it’s Lebanese but it’s an Iranian part
of town” (Shalal-Esa 2002: 5). Therefore, the writer, inspired by an actual Lebanese
restaurant in the middle of a Persian neighborhood, decides to further complicate her
novel’s ethnic panorama through the figure of an Iraqi American chef.
For this reason, the novel narrates how many Iranian neighbors refuse to visit the
restaurant to be served by Sirine because of her Iraqi background, which evokes the
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tensions between Iraq and Iran and their eight-year war.52 This fact implies that
immigrants not only bring their homelands’ cultural values to their new adopted home,
but also their tensions and rivalries. However, Koorosh, the owner of one of the Iranian
markets close to the Café “appeared on Sirine’s first day of work announcing that he
was ready to forgive the Iraqis on behalf of the Iranians. He stood open-mouthed when
he saw white-blond Sirine, then finally blurted out, “Well, look at what Iraq has
managed to produce!” (Abu-Jaber 2003: 10).
As I have already mentioned, Um-Nadia’s Café has acquired a gathering power
as it provides a meeting point where people from different ethnic backgrounds get
together. In addition to Arab and Arab American people, this inter-ethnic space is
frequented by white Americans and Latinos, as well:
There are Jenoob, Garb, and Schmaal – Engineering students from
Egypt; Shark, a math student from Kuwait; Lon Hayden, the chair of
Near Eastern Studies; Morris who owns the newsstand; Raphael-fromNew-Jersay; Jay, Ron, and Troy from the Kappa Something Something
fraternity house; Odah, the Turkish butcher, and his many sons. There are
two American policemen – one white and one black – who come to the
café every day, order fava bean dip and lentils fried with rice and onions.
(10)
In addition, there are still some other elements which contribute to the delineation of
this ethnic mosaic: Víctor Hernández from Mexico and Cristobal from El Salvador, both
of whom help Sirine in the kitchen. In this way, the café “serves as a worldly space
despite its modest physical size” (Salaita 2011: 102).
The café is the site of constant border crossings between these people with
varied religious and ethnic origins, which reminds one of Gloria Anzaldúa’s definition
of the borderlands which “are physically present wherever two or more cultures edge
each other, where people of different cultures occupy the same territory, where under,
52
The Iran-Iraq war took place from September 1980 to August 1988.
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lower, middle and upper classes touch, where the space between two individuals shrinks
with intimacy” (19). In this same context, Susan Friedman refers to the borderland as an
“indeterminate, potentially shifting and broad terrain across and through which
intercultural traffic and transaction circulate” (135). Furthermore, “these intercultural
encounters” take place when people from different backgrounds intermingle in a way
that creates “some form of connection across difference” (135).
Therefore, the café, and consequently, the novel, become a space of encounter
and a territory of cultural negotiations, mapping, on the one hand, the complexities of
the ethnic components of American society, and on the other, situating Arab and Arab
American communities within the multiethnic reality of the United States. It is relevant
here, to highlight that, “within this matrix of these intersecting cultures, an intercultural
encounter between the members of the same society might involve the meeting of
multiple differences, even when a shared membership in one group tends to obscure or
overwhelm those differences” (Friedman 1998: 135). For this reason, it is important that
contemporary Arab American writers respond to rigid and limited readings of Arab and
Arab American communities in mainstream America and shed light on the complex and
heterogeneous presence of subjects with Arab backgrounds in this country, hence the
importance of the ethnic borderland strategy to achieve this goal. Thus, Carol FaddaConrey draws attention to the fact that,
contemporary Arab American writers such as Abu-Jaber and others
articulate stories about individual and group identities, locating strategies
by which the ethnic borderland becomes a space of communication for
different minority groups, a space that ultimately leads to the
transformation of ethnic relations. . . Recognizing the differences among
and within minority groups becomes an essential part of Abu-Jaber’s
delineation of the ties that unite them within Crescent’s ethnic
borderland. (2006: 194)
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Through the intercultural intersections exposed in her novel, Abu-Jaber portrays
the coexistence of minority groups together with Arab Americans, focusing on the
variety of individual as well as communal experiences. In this way, this inclusive
strategy challenges essentialist and rigid perceptions of communities of color, including
the Arab American one, and at the same time paves the way for the configuration of
diverse perspectives and experiences. Abu-Jaber depicts a wide range of Arab and Arab
American characters. Sirine, for instance, the thirty-nine-year old Iraqi American
woman, is the daughter of an Iraqi father and an American mother, both of whom died
in an African country while they were working for the Red Cross. Therefore, she has
lived from an early age with her Iraqi uncle in Los Angeles and she has not had any
other place as home. Her uncle, a university teacher, came to America with his brother
looking for new opportunities and experiences. Accordingly, his experience diverges
from Hanif, his countryman, who has fled Iraq and Saddam Hussein’s regime in order
to save his own life. Sirine’s uncle tells his niece that “the Iraq your father and I came
from doesn’t exist anymore. It’s a new, scary place. When your old house doesn’t exist
anymore, that makes things sadder in general” (116-17). On the other hand, Hanif’s
exilic experience has marked his life as he still cannot overcome the deep sense of loss
engendered by his forced departure from Iraq. In this sense, even though Hanif and the
uncle share the same national origins, they do not necessarily share the same immigrant
experience in the United States. Even their approach towards Iraq is not the same
because, while the one perceives it as strange and the opposite of home, the other is
longing to return there and regain the “part of my body [which] was torn away” (152)
when he left.
In addition to these characters, there is also a group of the café’s regulars who do
not play any important role in the novel’s plot and whose national affiliation is carefully
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delineated by the writer. These are the students from Egypt, Yemen and Kuwait, for
instance, who try to find a homelike place in the café. Abu-Jaber highlights the
differences existing between Arab American characters like the ones who have not
known any place apart from the United States, and others who feel involved in the
affairs of the Arab homeland. In this context, there is the figure of Rana, the active
veiled Saudi American student who, in a “Women in Islam” meeting, insists that
“American Muslims must do everything they can to show support for their Iraqi
brothers and sisters” (159) after the Gulf War. She is answered by another Arab
American woman saying, “I don’t even know why you expect us to know about all
these political things…We just want to be Americans like everyone else…My brothers
and sisters are in Orange County where they belong” (160). Once again, Abu-Jaber is
trying to dismantle essentialist perceptions of Arabs and Arab Americans in the United
States through her focus on the variety of attitudes and the complexity of the allegiances
among the members of these communities.
Along with her intention to show cultural interactions and to bridge connections
between Arab and Arab American communities with other groups of color, Abu-Jaber
follows the same pattern of deconstructing essentialist perceptions in order to illustrate
the diversity of the Latino experience in the United States, as well. As I have mentioned
before, there are two Latino characters who work in the café, helping Sirine in the
kitchen. Víctor is a Mexican American young man who does not feel quite at home in
America. He says, “I was born here and all, but sometimes I wish I could just go off to
some place like Mexico” (276). He expresses the displacement he feels in America,
being the son of Mexican immigrants, and his longing for his parents’ homeland. When
he once hears Aziz, the Syrian poet, say that Americans think that all Arab people are
terrorists; he replies that he does not share their opinion. Aziz adds: “If you and I were
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out shopping at the mall do you think any of the white guys there could tell the
difference between us? They’d think you were one of my terrorist buddies” (187).
Therefore, Aziz minimizes the difference between Arabs and Latinos, shedding light on
the issue of racism in the United States which pervades many aspects of life there. He
states that both Arab and Latino people are the object of racism in the United States,
explaining that many white Americans do not make distinctions between people of
color, and discriminate equally against both. Hence, Aziz is trying to find affinities and
commonalities between Arabs and Latinos through the construction of a common
ground based on the wholesale prejudices and racism that both groups are suffering
from in America.
In her portrayal of affinities between Latinos and Arabs living in the United
States, Abu-Jaber mentions as well the story of Cristobal, the refugee who escaped from
El Salvador. It is Víctor who makes the connection between Hanif’s escape from Iraq
and Cristobal’s experience. He tells Sirine that
[Han] was telling me what it was like where he comes from, about the
guardia they have there, and their crazy dictator, and it was reminding
me of something. And then I remembered it was Cristobal. You know
Cristobal is from El Salvador? … They firebombed his whole family.
The Guardia. All dead. They were just little farmers from nowhere. Out
in the country. You should see how messed up his legs are. (277)
So, despite their different national and cultural backgrounds, Cristobal and Han share
some common experiences related to the persecution they have suffered in their
countries of origin and which has marked their life in the United States. This is why,
when Han suddenly returns to Iraq, Sirine wants to ask Cristobal what might happen to
her lover there. She imagines that due to their shared experience, “Cristobal must
somehow know the answer to that” (295). Although she realizes that the two men come
from totally different countries, and that Cristobal cannot possibly foresee Han’s fate
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back in Iraq, she still feels that the Latino man must have some idea, some instinctive
feeling, about the matter.
Once more, Abu-Jaber highlights here the solidarity which marks the exchanges
between Latino and Arab characters in this novel, focusing, in this way, on the
importance of constructing bridges between these communities. In this respect, the
novel’s interethnic encounters are culminated by the union between Víctor and UmNadia’s daughter Mireille. One day, Sirine
walks into the basement storage room and discovers Víctor Hernández
kissing Mireille on the butcher block table among the onion skins… A
month later, Mireille is engaged to Víctor Hernández and Victor moves
in with her and Um-Nadia. He makes three different kinds of mole sauces
for their wedding dinner, and chocolate and cinnamon and black pepper
sweetcake. (330-31)
For their wedding, the couple has chosen to mingle Mexican and Arab recipes, making
of their union, in this way, the symbol of blending Middle Eastern and Latino traditions
and identities. Therefore, Abu-Jaber suggests the possibility of bridging differences and
creating common grounds for cross-cultural encounters, which helps overthrow
stereotypes and create solidarity between different groups. In this way, the creation of
new stages for the communication between different ethnic groups makes of hybridity a
common concept bringing together all of these coexisting communities.
4.3 Eating Up Differences and Cooking Up Stories
Food is definitely one of the prominent themes treated in Crescent (2003) as it
dominates the narrative’s structure. This highlights Abu-Jaber’s particular interest in
food giving it a central position in her works, like her culinary memoir The Language of
Baklava (2005) and her last novel Birds of Paradise (2011). In an interview with the
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novelist Randa Jarrar, she states that she “never intended food to occupy so much of my
creative work… But the obsession with food filled my childhood... In America, my
Jordanian father spent decades cooking professionally and pursuing his dream of a
restaurant, and it was one of the central ways that he explained himself to his American
children.”53 Abu-Jaber considers food “such a great human connector,” focusing on the
intimacy it involves (Shalal-Esa 2002: 5). She comments that, while preparing her
novel, she wanted to write about Arabic food and she “thought… Let the food be a
metaphor for their experience. And I want people to relate it through the beauty and the
passion of the senses, the sensory joy of the novel and the beauty of Arabic food” (5).
Therefore, the writer is aware of the wide range of possibilities that food can offer for
the narrative, perceiving it as “the most powerful way of creating the metaphor of the
heart and gathering place, a place where the collective forms” (5). Accordingly, AbuJaber carefully uses food and the preparation of food as metaphors for her characters’
experiences, exploring themes like identity, community, bridging differences, and love,
obviously.
Eating is a basic human activity which is part of everyday practice, necessary for
satisfying the body’s fundamental and vital needs, allowing its survival. The
significance of the act of eating surpasses restricted physiological needs to create a
wider connection with social function. In this way, eating becomes a ritual full of
meanings. In this context, Carol Bardentstein analyses the social importance of food
stating that,
a resurgence of scholarship on the relationship between food and the
many aspects of human experience has taken up with renewed interest
these roles of food in the social, religious, and cultural lives of people
and the ways food consumption, preparation, and transmission of
Jarrar, Randa. “Diana Abu-Jaber: Race, Food, and Cultivating Selective Deafness.” Guernica: a
Magazine of Arts and Politics. (June 10th, 2011)
< https://www.guernicamag.com/daily/diana_abu-jaber_race_food_and/>
53
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knowledge about food has figured in how individuals conceive of
themselves, affiliate and identify with home, homeland, and a range of
social groupings, and how the earliest and most persistently retained
sense memories are profoundly incorporated into the creation and
structuring of collective memory and cultural identity. (356)
Here, Brandenstein sheds light on the growing body of academic research on the theme
of food due to its relevance in the analysis of many issues related to human behavior. It
plays an essential role in the discussion of themes linked to culture and ethnic identity,
among many others. In this sense, eating practices are, in reality, fundamental to selfidentity and to the definition of community and home.
Brandenstein stresses, as well, the relation between food and memory when she
points out that “both individual and collective memory are profoundly and densely
embedded in, enacted, and communicated symbolically through the many forms of
engagement with food” (355). This idea perfectly echoes the experience of the novel’s
chef, whose engagement with food starts at a very early age when she used to watch her
Iraqi father and her American mother preparing food. “Even though her mother was
American, her father always said his wife thought about food like an Arab” (Abu-Jaber
2003: 39-40). Therefore, Sirine’s childhood memories take her back to her parents’
kitchen, which is the scene of her mother’s involvement with her husband’s Middle
Eastern background through the production of food. Related to this,
Sirine’s earliest memory was of sitting on a phone book on a kitchen
chair, the sour-tar smell of pickled grape leaves in the air. Her mother
spread the leaves flat on the table like floating hands, placed the spoonful
of rice and meat at the center of each one, and Sirine with her tiny fingers
rolled the leaves up tighter and neater than anyone else could – tender,
garlicky, meaty packages that burst in the mouth. (40)
Later, Sirine’s relationship with the kitchen starts in earnest as early as the age of
nine when she learns about her parents’ death in Africa. That same day, she “went into
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the kitchen and made an entire tray of stuffed grape leaves all by herself. Then she and
her uncle ate them all week, sitting at the kitchen table. Sirine sat on a telephone book
propped on her chair, legs swinging, eating and watching the back door” (40). And thus,
Sirine becomes aware of the legacy that she has received from her parents, which leads
her to take over the kitchen the very day she learns about their death. In fact, the choice
of grape leaves to baptize her entry into in the kitchen world is highly significant
because “Cooked grape leaves provide the very soul of Middle Eastern food in the form
of dolmas that are stuffed with rice, olive oil, garlic, lemon, onions, herbs, and ground
lamb” (Mehta, 213). From now on, the kitchen has become her retreat where she can
recall all her happy childhood memories when she was with with her parents. It is the
place where she has observed her parents’ complicity while preparing food together:
“This was one of the ways that Sirine learned how her parents loved each other – their
concerted movements like a dance; they swam together through the round arcs of her
mother’s arms and her father’s tender strokes” (Abu-Jaber 2003: 49). They even invite
their daughter to take part in the baklava-making ritual, for instance, to her great joy and
excitement: “Sirine was proud when they let her paint a layer, prouder when she was
able to pick up one of the translucent sheets and transport it to the tray – light as raw
silk, fragile as a veil” (49). Therefore, cooking for her has always been related to her
parents’ memory; and the kitchen is the place to be because of all the feelings it stirs in
her and the memories it brings back.
As a result, Sirine chooses the kitchen to be the place where she works for a
living, thinking that “work is home” (108). She has worked in different restaurants, such
as French, Italian and American ones, until the day Um-Nadia looks for her and invites
her to work in her new restaurant. That move is very important as it foreshadows a
significant change in her life. In fact, “when she moved to Nadia’s Café, she went
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through her parents’ old recipes and began cooking the favorite – but almost forgotten –
dishes of her childhood. She felt as if she were returning to her parents’ tiny kitchen and
her earliest memories” (9). Therefore, this new job has allowed Sirine to reconnect with
her parents’ memory and also to get back to her Arab heritage, from which she has been
detached all these years.
Sirine is portrayed as a second generation Arab American woman who does not
speak Arabic and who has little knowledge about the Arab world. She has inherited her
mother’s white American features, which allows her to pass as a real American, as
understood in mainstream culture. Looking at herself in the mirror,
All she can see is white. She is so white. Her eyes wide, almond shaped,
and sea-green, her nose and lips tidy and compact. Entirely her mother.
That’s all anyone can see: when people ask her nationality they react
with astonishment when she says she’s half Arab. I never would have
thought that, they say, laughing. You sure don’t look it. When people say
this she feels like her skin is being peeled away. She thinks that she may
have somehow inherited her mother on the outside and her father on the
inside. If she could compare her own and her father’s internal organs –
the blood and bones and the shape of her mind and emotions – she thinks
she would find her truer and deeper nature. She imagines her parents,
young expecting their first child, expecting perhaps, a true amalgam of
their two bodies. Were they disappointed, she wonders, to have an
entirely fair-skinned child? (195-96)
Abu-Jaber points out that relying on skin color to identify a subject’s race or ethnicity
can lead to erroneous assumptions. Here, she compares Sirine’s whiteness with the
supposed darkness commonly associated with Arab features. In this sense, although
color and physical appearance are considered significant racial and ethnic markers, they
do not necessarily reflect a subject’s identity or national affiliation.
In my opinion, the writer here is alluding to her own experience as a fair-skinned
Jordanian American who does not fit in the mainstream perception of Arabs. She
remarks: “I’m frequently told — sometimes insistently — that I don’t look Arab. I’m
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told that I look Russian or French or Irish or Greek or Italian. I don’t take it too
personally, though I sometimes have the sense that people simply don’t want me to look
Arab.”54 In the same way, just like Abu-Jaber, Sirine’s hybridity provokes astonishment
and sometimes even shock among Americans due to its contradiction with mainstream
racial perceptions.
The fact of living with her uncle since her parents’ death has not prevented
Sirine from having a full American way of life totally disconnected from her Arab
background. In this way, joining Nadia’s Café gives her the opportunity to find a part of
herself that she lost with her parents’ death. While exploring this forgotten component
of her identity, the food that she elaborates plays a fundamental role in the re-creation of
home taking place at the café. The café’s kitchen allows her to bring her Iraqi father’s
legacy back up to the surface, and at the same time, it contributes to keeping alive the
Middle Eastern customers’ connection with the traditions and the homeland they have
left behind. Sirine thinks that “food should taste like it came from. I mean good food
especially. You can sort of trace it back…Things show their origins” (59). Thus, she is
aware of the necessity of being authentic while preparing Arab food, which creates a
kind of intimate connection between her and Arab cuisine.
Speaking of this, Víctor Hernández argues that “Chef isn’t an American cook…
Not like the way Americans do food – just dumping salt into the pot. All the flavors go
in the same direction. Chef cooks like we do. In Mexico, we put cinnamon in with the
chocolate and pepper in the sweetcakes, so things pull apart, you know, make it
bigger?” (187). Thus, in spite of being American, Sirine gets rid of her Americanness
while cooking and becomes an Arab. In this way, like her mother before her, she
“thought about food like an Arab” (39-40). In addition, Víctor points out the affinities
Abu-Jaber, Diana. “Seeing Ourselves.” The Washington Post. October 21, 2001.
<https://commonplacer.wordpress.com/category/diana-abu-jaber/>
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between Arab and Latino cuisines, highlighting the intermixture of culinary cultures.
For instance, one day, Victor “brings a bagful of chili peppers” to Sirine, who “uses
slices of the soft inner hearts puréed into the baba ghannuj and marinades for the
kabobs” (255). This intermingling of Mexican and Middle Eastern ingredients produces
creative new tastes and flavors mirroring the intermixture of cultures taking place in this
novel.
One of the most significant examples of the novel’s blending of flavors and
cultures is the gathering that takes place in the house of Sirine’s uncle, baptized “Arabic
Thanksgiving” by the chef. The feast has gathered together many of the novel’s
diasporic characters: “By noon, there is Han, Mireille, Víctor Hernández, and his cousin
Eliazar, Aziz the poet, Nathan, Um-Nadia, Cristobal the custodian, Shark, Jenoob,
Abdullah, Schmaal, and Gharb – five of the lonely students from the café – Sirine, and
her uncle” (182). Therefore, Sirine and her uncle have opened the doors of their house
for these people, giving them the opportunity to feel the sense of a community in this
important American feast characterized by family reunions. In fact, “Sirine and her
uncle try to invite over anyone who needs a place to sit and have a bite and a
conversation” (174). As Nathalie Handal argues,
Food demonstrates the cultural traits and behaviors of a group, for
instance, the hospitality (giving and sharing) of Arab culture is expressed
through their continuous offering of food. Food is a gift of God,
according to Islam, and should be shared. Through eating we create
bonds and social solidarity by learning about others, by learning to
understand and accept their differences as well as our own. (141)
The gathering in the house of Sirine’s uncle embraces this spirit described by Handal, as
it has resulted in a multiethnic “family” celebration symbolizing the novel’s constant
border crossing.
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The composition of the guests foreshadows the hybrid menu prepared for the
dinner. Sirine decides to prepare “rice and pine nuts and ground lamb in the turkey
instead of cornbread, and yogurt sauce instead of cranberries” (Abu-Jaber 2003: 174),
together with “sautéed greens with the bittersweet vinegar, and lentils with tomato,
onion, and garlic” (181). She also prepares “stuffed squashes and grape leaves, the
creamed spinach and glazed sweet potatoes, the smoked frekeh and the baba ghannuj”
(186). In addition to all of this,
Among the guests’ contributions, there is a big round fatayar – a lamb pie
– that Aziz bought from the green-eyed girl at the Iranian bakery; six
sliced cylinders of cranberry sauce from Um-Nadia; whole roasted
walnuts in chili sauce from Cristóbal; plus Víctor brought three
homemade pumpkin pies and a half-gallon of whipping cream. (183)
The abundance of food variations present on this special Thanksgiving table reflects the
richness of the culinary traditions brought to America by immigrants represented here
by Middle Eastern as well as Latino traditions. The turkey, which traditionally
dominates the table of the American Thanksgiving, has been hybridized here through
the cinnamon ancestral flavor that Sirine adds to it. Accordingly, this “Arabic
Thanksgiving,” characterized by the merging of different culinary aromas, illustrates the
negotiation processes that ethnic groups go through in America, fusing the traditions of
the homelands left behind with the newly acquired customs belonging to the host
country, in order to bring about new flavors and new identities.
Sirine’s uncle addresses his guests and says:
Well, look at us… sitting around here like a bunch of Americans with our
crazy turkey. All right, now, I want to make a big toast. Here’s to sweet,
unusual families, pleasant dogs who bahave, food of this nature, the
seven types of smiles, the crescent moon, and a nice cup of tea with mint
every day. Sahtain. Good luck and God bless us everyone. (183)
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Aware of the complexity of the ethnic component of this special celebration taking
place in his house, the uncle blesses the table and declares that their differences do not
prevent them from forming part of the same family, which is the one gathering all the
members of the ethnic fabric of the United States of America. More importantly, he
validates his audience as being part of this nation; and despite their differences, they all
contribute to the negotiation of the American self. The uncle also makes reference to the
crescent moon which has appeared that night of Thanksgiving as if it were a Muslim
sacred date like the holy month of Ramadan or Eid al-Fitr55. The Islamic calendar is
based on lunar months which begin when a new crescent is sighted in the western sky
after sunset within a day or so after the new moon. Even though most Muslim countries
do not use this calendar on a daily basis, but only to mark important religious dates, the
sighting of the crescent moon in the Muslims’ mind is related to celebrations and
happiness, and obviously family gatherings. Here, Abu-Jaber is equating this
quintessential American holiday with Muslim celebrations, which conveys the
coexistence of these hyphenated characters in America’s social fabric.
This special Thanksgiving organized by Sirine reveals the process of culinary
exploration of identity undergone by the chef thanks to her job, on the one hand, and to
her lover, on the other:
In the past, Sirine would be absorbed for weeks thinking about what she
would cook for Thanksgiving. It was her mother’s favorite holiday and
the traditional American foods always made Sirine think of her, the
warmth of their table in the fall; it was among the earliest and the best of
her memories. But things are different now. Her mind has been taken up
by Han. (174)
Eid al-Fitr is one of islam’s most sacred holidays that celebrates the end of the holy month of fasting
for Ramadan.
55
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Therefore, Sirine’s blending of her forgotten Arab legacy with her present is accelerated
by the appearance of Han in her life. Her best guarded secret has been that “food was
better than love: surer, truer, more satisfying and enriching. As long as she could lose
herself in the rhythms of peeling an onion, she was complete and whole. And as long as
she could cook, she will be loved” (184).
However, everything has changed the night she and Han meet at Lon Hayden’s
party when a crescent moon appears in the dark sky. “‘Look there.’ Han points to the
sky. ‘An Arab crescent.’ She looks at the paper-fine moon. ‘Why do you call it that?’”
(35) Han replies: “‘It reminds me of the moon from back home.’ He looks at her. ‘It’s a
good omen’” (35). Therefore, not only does the crescent signal the beginning of a new
lunar month that night, but also celebrates the birth of a love story between Han and
Sirine. At that very moment, Han receives the signal and becomes aware of the growing
reciprocity between them. Despite the number of Arab men who go to the café, Han is
the only one who succeeds in attracting Sirine’s attention because, unlike the others, he
“looks at her. Even though they barely know each other, she has the clear uncanny sense
that when he looks, he sees her” (37).
Therefore, food becomes a means of communication between Sirine and Han. In
one of his first visits to the café, Sirine makes knaffea56for breakfast that day. Um-Nadia
asks her laughing: “Who are we in love with, I wonder?” (28). The latter’s reaction
implies that the elaboration of such a complicated and delicious Middle Eastern dessert
reveals Sirine’s intentions to please Han and show him her ability to make him feel at
home. The chef takes a knaffea plate and heads to Han’s table to serve him herself:
“‘Some knaffea, sir?’ she says, and when Han looks at her the feeling of it stirs inside
her like an ache in her neck and shoulders. She has an impulse to sit and feed him by
56
Knaffea, or knafeh, is a delicious Levantine sweet cheese pastry.
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hand” (28-29). Realizing the impact of Han’s look on her, Sirine becomes aware of the
extent of her growing feelings towards him to the extent that she would even feed him
herself. Accordingly, food is a human connector that Sirine uses to transmit her
feelings, implying her search for complicity and connection.
In this way, she goes back to her childhood kitchen when she observes her
parents’ synchronicity and choreographed movements revealing a harmonious
integration of the one with the other while preparing baklava together, and decides to
put all of this into practice with Han. Baklava is usually served as a dessert at the café.
One day, Sirine comes a bit late to work and realizes she has little time for the
elaboration of baklava before breakfast. However, she is unable to skip it that day
because she thinks that “baklava is important – it cheers the students up. They close
their eyes when they bite into its crackling layers, all lightness and scent of orange
blossoms” (49). Moreover, she feels disrupted because of the interruption of her
sensorial routine of baklava making, as she “feels unsettled when she tries to begin
breakfast without preparing the baklava first; she can’t find her place in things” (49).
Therefore, Sirine turns to Han, who passes by her kitchen to greet her, and who,
in order to help her restore the order of her life that has been displaced that morning,
offers to help her: “There’s time for baklava if they make it together” (49). They merge
together in the harmonious ritual of baklava-making:
She hunts in the big drawer for another apron, shows him where to stand,
how to pick up the sheets of filo dough from its edge, the careful precise
unpeeling, the quick movement from the folded sheets to the tray, and
finally the positioning on top of the tray. He watches everything closely,
asks no questions, and then aligns the next pastry sheet perfectly. She
paints the dough with clarified butter. And while Sirine has never known
how to dance, always stiffening and trying to lead while her partner
murmurs relax, relax – and while there are very few people who know
how to cook and move with her in the kitchen – it seems that she and
Han know how to make baklava together. She’s startled to find that she
seems to feel his presence in her shoulders, running through her arms and
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wrists, into her hands. Her senses feel bunched together like fingers
around a bouquet, her skin sensitive to the touch. She feels light-headed.
She watches the fluent movement in his legs, arms and neck, the dark
fringe of his eyes. He transports the sheets and she sweeps the pastry
brush, losing herself in the rocking movement. (49-50)
This long excerpt shows that, like her parents before her, this baklava-making
experience has become Sirine’s own synchronized act of love. Both of them are
devotedly taking part in this harmonized exercise of sweets elaboration. They are
sharing this delightful task, letting their feelings interact and merge together in order to
give a sweet push to the relationship about to start between them. This experience
makes Sirine realize her compatibility with Han who has proved to be a suitable partner
in the kitchen and maybe in the outside.
This experience stirs Han’s memories and takes him back to his mother’s
kitchen in Iraq “where women were always telling stories. My mother and my aunts and
the neighbors and – my sister” (50). This reveals the strong connection between the
preparation of baklava and memory. In this context, Brinda J. Mehta states that:
The very process of making baklava symbolizes the act of making
memories through communal effort. The layering of nuts and paper-thin
dough to create a refined culinary treat parallels the tenuous progression
of memory, whose delicate texture provides a lifeline to the past. Like the
folds of memory, baklava-making involves a fragile internal organization
in which a combination of liquid and solid substances preserves the
composition of each sweetened square. (214)
To illustrate Mehta’s argument, the mere fact of reading the episode describing Sirine
and Han sharing this exquisite experience of baklava making, has found its way to the
folds of my own memory. It has taken me back to memories of communal preparation
of baklava in my mother’s as well as grandmother’s kitchens. With every new layer of
the pastry Han and Sirine lay out on the tray, a new memory surfaces in my mind.
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Baklava makes me think about celebrations and family gatherings in religious feasts and
weddings, among others, because it is the queen of all the desserts. Therefore, in my
mind, baklava’s very presence in any household is synonymous with happiness and
celebration.
After sharing this exquisite experience of baklava-making with her, Han invites
Sirine for dinner in his apartment. He prepares for her a traditional American meal of
meat loaf after studying some old American cookbooks. For him, this shift from Middle
Eastern to American food makes him feel “intrigued by the new kind of cooking, a shift
of ingredients like a move from native tongue into a foreign language: butter instead of
olive oil; potatoes instead of rice; beef instead of lamb” (Abu-Jaber 2003: 58). AbuJaber, here, is making an obvious demarcation of these two gastronomic traditions in
order to highlight the culinary exchange performed by the two lovers. Han tries to
integrate Sirine’s American world into his own by means of food, which has become
here a form of communication between them. Sirine praises “the rich texture of this
meat loaf – the eggs and breadcrumbs – and these bits of onion are so good, and there’s
a little chili powder and dry mustard, isn’t it? It’s lovely” (58-59). In this way, this
intercourse through food becomes a fundamental component of their relationship as
lovers.
With the objective of pleasing him and soothing his painful exilic experience,
Sirine “looked up Iraqi dishes, trying to find the childhood foods that she’s heard Han
speak of, the sfeehas – savory pies stuffed with meet and spinach – and round mansaf
trays piled with lamb and rice and yoghurt sauce” (181). The chef’s quest for Iraqi
recipes conveys her interest in developing her relationship with her lover, which
highlights the role of food as a human connector and a bridge transcending limitations
and differences. Therefore, for Sirine and Han, “food is their own private language”
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(256). Sirine tries to make up for the loss of her father’s Arabic language through her
efforts to acquire and master the notions of the special language of Arab gastronomy,
which has created a space for the lovers to share their stories and memories, and also to
lessen the cultural alienation experienced by them. Hence, sharing food helps the couple
transcend their differences, situating them in an in-between space where negotiation is a
key factor dominating all the exchanges taking place between them.
Even after Han’s abrupt return to Iraq, this secret language of food remains.
After his departure, her “food doesn’t taste the way it should, but she no longer cares
about food” (303). Her indifference conveys the idea that food is a form of expression
reflecting the cook’s mood together with all the stories behind it. Sirine understands the
effect of her food on her customers through the “bridesmaid present” that Mireille gives
her the day of her wedding with Víctor. It is “a book about a woman who cried into her
cooking and infected her guests with her emotions” (331). After reading the book,
Sirine spends some weeks thinking about the possible effects she might be having over
her customers through the ingredients of sadness and hopelessness that have been added
to her dishes since Han’s sudden return to Iraq. She becomes conscious that, as a
consequence of losing her lover, “her customers – the young Arab students, professors
and their families – seem more serious than before, more given to brooding, hugging,
and thinking. And on several occasions someone – usually a student – has burst into
tears while eating the soup or tearing the bread” (331).
It is important to signal Abu-Jaber’s direct reference to Like Water for
Chocolate: A Novel in Monthly Installments, with Recipes, Romances, and Home
Remedies (1992)57 by the Mexican writer Laura Esquivel. The novel narrates the love
life of Tita, the youngest daughter of a rural middle-class Mexican family, which takes
57
The book was written and published originally in the Spanish language under the title of Como agua
para chocolate: novela de entregas mensuales con recetas, amores, y remedies Caseros, in 1989.
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place in the kitchen. María Elena de Valdés points out Tita’s ability “to survive her
mother’s harsh rule by transferring her love, joy, sadness, and anger into her cooking.
Tita’s emotions and passions are the impetus for expression and action, not through the
normal means of communication but through the food she prepares. She is, therefore,
able to consummate her love with Pedro through the food she serves” (80). Tita and
Pedro are deeply in love, but they are not allowed to get married because the girl’s
mother, Mama Elena, thinks that her youngest daughter’s duty is to stay home and take
care of her mother until her death. Tita is heartbroken when she learns about Pedro’s
intention to marry her sister Rosaura. Tita weeps with sadness while preparing her
sister’s wedding cake, and her stream of tears spills into the batter. Therefore, Natcha
the cook tries to comfort her saying: “Go to bed child, I’ll finish the meringue icing.
Only the pan knows how the boiling soup feels, but I know how you feel, so stop
crying, you’re getting the meringue watery, and it won’t set properly” (Esquivel 1992:
35). Consequently, Tita’s tears have transformed the cake into something enchanting,
causing longing and heartsickness in the wedding guests:
The moment they took their first bite of the cake, everyone was flooded
with a great wave of longing. Even Pedro, usually so proper, was having
trouble holding back his tears. Mama Elena, who hadn’t shed a single
tear over her husband’s death, was sobbing silently… Everyone there,
every last person fell under this spell, and not very many of them made it
to the bathrooms in time – those who didn’t join the collective vomiting
that was going on all over the patio. Only one person escaped: the cake
had no effect on Tita. (39)
In this scene of magical realism, Esquivel displays the power of Tita’s tears which have
provided her food with a mood-altering effect on the consumers.
Therefore, like Sirine, Tita as a cook has the power to induce feelings like
sadness and heartsickness among the wedding guests. Sirine’s mourning after Han’s
sudden disappearance does not lead her food to intoxicate her customers but rather
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makes them sad and serious, enhancing their homesickness. More importantly, AbuJaber’s reference to Esquivel’s novel aims to blend Mexican and Middle Eastern
culture, the culmination of which is symbolized by the wedding of Mireille and Víctor.
The latter introduces the chef to Mexican literature and to this novel in particular,
suggesting that both Sirine and Tita have similar experiences, which allows them to
share their cooking, their love and their life with the guests and customers. In this way,
Abu-Jaber sheds light on the power of food, as well as literature, in creating alliances
and affinities between people from different backgrounds.
Now, I will explore another element closely connected to food in Crescent
(2003), which is storytelling. Abu-Jaber starts most of the novel’s chapters with a part
of an ongoing fantastic tale told by Sirine’s Iraqi uncle. In this way, the writer blends
the novel’s main plot about the love story between Sirine and Han, taking place in the
nineties, with a parallel mythical tale. The uncle’s stories are exchanged for his niece’s
delicious dishes. In this sense, the chef uses Arab food as a means to persuade her uncle
to use his Scheherazade-like skills to tell her the mythical tale of the adventures of
Abdelrahman Salahadin and his mother Aunt Camille. Hence, Sirine provides her uncle
with the food he likes in order to listen to his tales:
Sirine’s uncle leans forward over their kitchen table, watching Sirine as
she scrapes a little more tabbouleh salad on to his dinner plate. “I’m so
full, Habeebti, ” he says. “Really, I couldn’t eat another bite.”
“You didn’t eat any vegetables at all.” She stands and places the dishes in
the sink. When she turns back, however, he is biting into a large, walnutstuffed ma’mul cookie. She puts her hands on her hips.
“So,” he says quickly, dusting crumbs away as if he could hide evidence.
“Isn’t it time for the next chapter of the moralless tale of Abdelrahman
Salahadin?” (13)
Even the uncle is aware of this kind of deal as he claims his culinary reward for the
stories he tells his niece. He says: “I would just like to point out at this moment, for the
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record, that accomplished uncles and storytellers are usually rewarded with plates of
knaffea pastry. For the record. Then we can get on with our story” (24).
Hence, it seems that Arab food is like an incentive which provokes the uncle’s
recalling of the cultural legacy of his Arab homeland in order to create a fantastic tale
full of vibrant details worthy of an episode from The Thousand and One Nights. The
Arab American poet and writer Naomi Shihab-Nye confirms this duality when she
describes the interconnectedness of Arab food and storytelling in her childhood home.
She explains that
Our Palestinian father was a wonderful storyteller. Every night my
brother and I drifted off to sleep wrapped in the mystery of distant
neighbors, villages, ancient stone streets, donkeys, and olive trees. Our
house by day was fragrant with cardamom spice and coffee, pine nuts
sizzled in olive oil, and delicious cabbage rolls. My girlfriend brought
iced cupcakes to girl scouts for treats, but I brought dates, apricots, and
almonds. (vii)
Thus, mingling food with storytelling is actually the novel’s fundamental component.
Besides her focus on Arab food, Abu-Jaber sheds light on the Middle Eastern oral
narrative tradition through the novel’s framing story. In the tradition of The Thousand
and One Nights, commonly referred to as The Arabian Nights, Abu-Jaber narrates the
mythical tale of Abdelrahman who sells himself into slavery in order to earn money and
then escapes from his masters faking his death by drowning in the sea. Although the
novel’s real and mythical worlds seem unrelated, they sometimes converge and echo
one another. By the end of the novel, at some points, the lines between the fantastic tale
and the realistic one get blurred, when Sirine starts feeling very confused:
She thinks of the story of Abdelrahman Salahadin. Sometimes, in the
months after Han left, when she was falling asleep she got confused and
couldn’t quite remember if it was Han or Abdelrahman who loved her, if
it was Han or Abdelrahman who dove into the black page of the open
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sea. Was it Abdelrahman who had to leave her, to return to his old home,
or Han who was compelled to drown himself, over and over again. (338)
Magali Cornier Michael draws our attention to “late twentieth century fiction’s
experimentation with form, which includes the creative deployment of framed tales by
white American male writers such as John Barth, Robert Coover, and Kurt Vonnegut,
among others” (314). She points out the presence of the figure of a storyteller
addressing a listener in many of these works. She argues that “Crescent certainly
participates in this tendency within contemporary fiction to reincorporate elements from
oral traditions into the novel form as a means of reinvigorating the novel form as
socially relevant” (314). In the case of Crescent (2003), therefore, Abu-Jaber borrows
the form of a traditional Middle Eastern cultural icon of oral storytelling and combines
it with the form of the Western novel, giving birth to a hybrid fiction in harmony with
this work’s central discourse of hybridity.
In this context, Steven Salaita comments that Abu-Jaber’s inclusion of a
storytelling uncle in her novel “recalls Rabih Alameddine’s focus on the story as a
profound element of Arab culture and history” (2011: 104). Alameddine’s novel The
Hakawati (2008) also merges modern fictive techniques with the storytelling traditions
influenced by Arabian Nights. Moving easily between the classic narrative traditions
and modern Western fiction, the novel is an important contribution to the Arab
American literary corpus. The novel’s title means “storyteller,” personalized in the
figure of Jihad, the uncle of the protagonist Osama. On the one hand, Alameddine
brings fantastic rich tales from different Middle Eastern cultures, and on the other, he
portrays the life of an extended multiethnic Lebanese family whose members live in the
United States and Lebanon. In this way, using the technique of a story within a story,
the novel skillfully moves between the ancient wars and the modern Lebanese civil war.
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Diana Abu-Jaber makes use of the same technique in the narration of
Abdelrahman’s survival skills and adventures. He has spent many years feigning having
drowned to escape his enslavers until he was abducted by the mermaid Queen Alieph.
When she stops receiving any news from her son, Aunt Camille starts looking for him.
After forty years of searching everywhere, she returns home to Aqaba, Jordan, to
discover that her son has become an actor in Hollywood under the name of “Omar
Sharif.” She has received a letter from the mermaid telling her about her lost son’s fate,
attaching “a few of her latest poems, which were going to be published in a literary
magazine” (Abu-Jaber 2003: 315). In the meanwhile, Abdelrahman Salahadin, now
called Omar Sharif, gets tired of his life in Hollywood and decides to go to Cairo to take
part in “a play called Othello” (329) that an Egyptian director, a friend of his, has
translated into Arabic. The play’s advertizing posters are scattered all over Cairo, “and
neither Abdelrahman, nor al-Rashid [the director] had any inkling that, having seen the
publicity posters, two special women would be in the audience for the opening night: a
mermaid poet and a proud mother” (330). Abdelrahman finally gets reunited with his
mother.
Therefore, in these tales, everything is “true, not true, real, not real. Who knows
what’s what?” (264). In fact, the tale traces Aunt Camille’s journeys throughout Syria,
the heart of Africa, and Egypt in her search for her lost son, witnessing events occurring
in epochs as separate as the thirteenth, the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries. In
this context, even Sir Richard Burton appears in the uncle’s tale because it turns out that
Abdelrahman’s mother is the one who inspired him in his translation of The Thousand
and One Nights. During her search for her son, the mother turns to Burton, becoming
his slave, because he knows the way to the source of the Nile, where she thinks she can
locate him. Thus, “in her slow and very nice and deliberate way, she began to take up
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space in Burton’s imagination… she began the metamorphosis from slave to muse”
(99). In this way, she becomes “the one to show Burton who Shaharazad might have
been” (111), as “she woke his imagination and lit his consciousness like a torch” (112).
Therefore, Abu-Jaber portrays Aunt Camille as a strong and fluent Arab woman
who dares to do the impossible in order to fulfill her will. She becomes able to enchant
Burton by her eloquence and intelligence, which leads him to help her reach the source
of the Nile. In this way, the novel challenges the stereotypical common representations
of Arab women in American media, providing a different portrayal of them. As Amal
Abdelrazek argues, “Aunt Camille uses her narrative mastery to change Burton’s and
the whole Western world’s distorted view of Middle Eastern women” (218).
Abdelrahman’s mother reminds us of another character in the realist plot, who is the
café’s owner Um-Nadia. She is portrayed as an industrious and wise woman who is
successfully running her own business, and who is extremely respected by all the
customers, both Arabs and non-Arabs. She is so brave that she accepts to buy the café
from its previous Egyptian owner whose business has failed because of the daily
presence of the two men in business suits belonging to the C.I.A. As soon as she opens
the café, “the two men in sunglasses promptly reappeared at the counter, but Um-Nadia,
who said she’d seen worse in Beirut, chased them off the premises flapping her kitchen
towel at them” (Abu-Jaber 2003: 9). Thus, she does not give them the opportunity to
intimidate her and to harm her customers, as well as her business.
Abu-Jaber’s
portrayal
of
these
female
characters
reverses
popular
representations of Arab women in the United States. This depiction is in harmony with
the novel’s objective to display a more realistic image of Arab and Arab American
characters, validating their membership of the American community as a whole. The
novel responds to rigid and narrow depictions of Arabs and Arab Americans in
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America, providing what Gregory Orfalea considers as “what the stereotyper wants to
blur” (117). In this way, she reveals her determination to present the “images of
humanness” (117) needed for the overturning of the stereotypical depiction of her
community. The novel’s anti-essentialist discourse highlights the complexity and
heterogeneity of the Arab presence in the United States. Therefore, Abu-Jaber creates a
hybrid novel, merging Middle Eastern oral tradition with the form of the Western novel,
emphasizing hybridity as the central discourse of her work. The novel itself is a Third
Space where inter-ethnic bridging provides a site where traditions and identities are
being negotiated in order to create new hybrid traditions and identities in-process,
shaping, in this way, the cultural landscape of America today.
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CHAPTER 5
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CHAPTER 5
ONCE IN A PROMISED LAND: THE COLLAPSE OF THE AMERICAN DREAM
The aim of this chapter is to analyze Laila Halaby’s novel Once in a Promised
Land (2007), one of the first Arab American fictional works addressing the tragic events
of September 11, 2001 and their subsequent effects on the lives of thousands of Arabs
and Arab Americans in the United States. The novel responds to the post 9/11 political
and social atmosphere in America, and challenges the narrow kinds of patriotism that
have emerged in the aftermath, leading to the marginalization and the discriminatory
profiling of people with Arab and Muslim backgrounds. In this light, Georgiana Banita
uses the expression “moral racialization” to refer to this strategy of employing a specific
rhetoric based on simplistic forms of patriotism in order to demonize the members of a
racial group considered suspicious. She points to the racialized aspect of the “war on
terror” discourse which identifies the enemy according to their appearance. She states
that:
The division of the world into good and evil as proposed by the Bush
administration in the days leading up to the invasion of Afghanistan and
the start of the war on terror culminated in what may be called moral
racialization, that is, the articulation of a racially suspicious enemy figure
propagated through the visual media and intended to imbibe and redirect
as much public resentment as possible. Moral racialization as I
understand it here relies on the group dynamics of moral panic,
supplemented with already entrenched patterns of racial intolerance.
(245)
Hence, the perpetuation of stigmatized views and indiscriminate demonizing depictions
of Arab and Muslim identities have led to the isolation of whole communities,
converting them into the target for collective punishments.
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In this way, the group that Joanna Kadi once called “The Most Invisible of the
Invisibles” (xix)58 has been increasingly acquiring much or even too much visibility
within the dominant public discourses in the United States. It is true that, even prior to
the September 11 terrorist attacks, Arabs and Arab Americans were already commonly
positioned under an interrogative of suspicion in “moments of [national] crisis” (Majaj
1999: 321). In this sense, Nadine Naber draws attention to “decades of state-sponsored
harassment of Arab American individuals, particularly those who are politically active”
(4). According to her, the World Trade Center attacks are, in fact,
a turning point, as opposed to the starting point, of histories of Anti-Arab
racism in the United States… September 11 was a turning point, in that
representations of ‘terrorism’ and ‘Islamic fundamentalism’ have
increasingly replaced other representations (i.e., the rich Arab oil sheikh and
belly-dancing harem girls) and have become more fervently deployed in
anti-Arab state policies and everyday patterns of engagement than ever
before. (4)
As a clear example of this, anti-Arab forms of discrimination have taken a vertiginous
ascending tendency, leading, for instance, to the increase of hate crimes against people
considered Arab or Muslim.
Therefore, the general atmosphere that reigned after the attacks favored the
consolidation of “the racialization of the category ‘Arab/Middle Eastern/Muslim’ as a
signifier of nonwhite Otherness or that a ‘racialization of Islam’ has underlain the post9/11 backlash against persons perceived to be Arab, Middle Eastern, South Asian,
and/or Muslim” (1-2). In this context, Mahmood Mamdani also observes the
fundamental role played by official America in the creation of this atmosphere through
its discourse based on making a distinction between “good Muslims” and “bad
Muslims.” As he says, “From this point of view, ‘bad Muslims” were clearly
58
Kadi, Joanna. “Introduction.” Food for Our Grandmothers: Writings by Arab-American
and Arab-Canadian Feminists. Ed. Kadi. Boston: South End Press, 1994. Print.
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responsible for terrorism… ‘good Muslims’ were anxious to clear their names and
consciences of this terrible crime and would undoubtedly support ‘us’ in a war against
‘them’” (15). He comes to the conclusion that the main idea behind this official
discourse is that “unless proved to be ‘good,’ every Muslim was presumed to be ‘bad’”
(15). Based on this presumption, new legislation and security measures were put into
effect in the aftermath of September 11, such as the Patriot Acts I and II, undermining
Muslim and Arab Americans’ rights and security.
In spite of the fact that these Acts as well as other decrees were supposed to
apply to all Americans, they actually single out Arab and Muslim Americans in
particular. Most importantly, the consequent infringement of these communities’ civil
rights found widespread popular support. For instance, “in the days immediately after
the attacks, the majority of Americans, according to Gallup polls, were in favor of
profiling Muslims” (Jamal 2008: 115).59 Therefore, legitimizing the violation of the
rights and liberties of Arab and Muslim American communities is the consequence of a
fast racialization process targeting these groups, fueled by the “war on terror” discourse
and the media frenzy. These communities become increasingly identified as the enemy.
In this way, a whole marginalization process was put in motion, raising doubts
about the very citizenship of Arab and Muslim Americans, who were depicted as “not
true members of the body politic, not quite part of the national community” (Joseph,
D’Halingue and Wong, 230). Their very right to ‘belong’ to America came into
question, under the pretext that a subject cannot be Arab and/or Muslim and at the same
time American. Hence, this essentialization project portrays these communities “as
culturally distinct from the ‘rest’ of America,” claiming that “the ‘culture’ of Arab
Jamal, Amaney. “Civil liberties and the Otherization of Arab and Muslim Americans.” Race and Arab
Americans Before and After 9/11. Ed. Amaney Jamal and Nadine Naber. New York: Syracus
University Press, 2008. Print.
59
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Americans and Muslim Americans is not only incongruent with ‘American’ culture, but
also suspect” (233). Consequently, the members of these communities “are transformed
into high-risk citizens, subtly justifying indiscriminate violation of the civil rights of, as
well as possible violence against, a vibrant part of the body politic” (234-35).
Laila Halaby situates her novel in this context of the immediate aftermath of the
September 11 terrorist attacks, narrating a richly layered tale about the lives of the
Haddads, a Jordanian-American couple who live in a comfortable middle-class setting
in Tucson, Arizona, where Jassim is an accomplished hydrologist and his wife Salwa
works in banking and real estate. Their marriage is on shaky ground, and their personal
challenges are compounded by the prejudice, suspicion and hatred surrounding them
after 9/11. Their seemingly bright prospects in the American Promised Land begin to
dim as their conflicts with each other, and with the culture surrounding them start to tear
their marriage apart.
Halaby reveals her engagement with the destabilization caused by the antiArab/Muslim discourse set in America in the post 9/11 landscape as early as the novel’s
preface. She introduces her protagonists in the following way: “We really come to know
them after the World Trade Center buildings have been flattened by planes flown by
Arabs, by Muslims. Salwa and Jassim are both Arabs. Both Muslims. But of course they
have nothing to do with what happened to the World Trade Center. Nothing and
everything” (Halaby 2007: vii-viii). After that, she creates a sort of virtual checkpoint
where she addresses the readers and gives them a box where they are required to leave
all their prejudices if they want to take part in the journey that her novel is about to
start:
Before I tell this story, I ask that you open the box and place in it any
notions and preconceptions, any stereotypes with regard to Arabs and
Muslims that you can find in your shirtsleeves and pockets, tucked in
your briefcase, forgotten in your cosmetic bag, tidied away behind your
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ears, rolled up in your underwear, saved on your computer’s hard drive.
This box awaits terrorists, veils, oil, and camels. There’s room for all of
your billionaires, bombers, and belly-dancers. (viii)
Moreover, Halaby asks the reader to get rid of “those hateful names as well,
ones you might never ever mutter: Sand Nigger, Rag Head, and Camel Jockey. You
don’t need them for this story” (ix). The writer sets her own conditions for the reader
who she invites into the intimate space of her novel, considering it an imaginary
storytelling home at the door of which shoes are left in order to keep the floor clean.
She finally welcomes the reader who manages to surmount all the virtual checkpoint’s
obstacles: “Do you feel lighter now, relieved of your excess baggage? Trust me; it will
make listening to the story easier, and you won’t get dog shit all over my floors” (ix).
With her clever use of this powerful metaphor, Halaby makes her own stance clear from
the very beginning, immediately putting the unthinking believer of all those stereotypes
on the defensive and – perhaps – making the more reasonable among them start to
question their own unthinking prejudices, or at least those of their compatriots.
Once in a Promised Land (2007) thus emerges as an anti-essentialist response to
the official as well as the popular discriminatory discourse against Arab and Muslim
Americans in the United States in the landscape of the attacks’ aftermath. The aim of
this chapter is to examine the novel’s depiction of the American dream from an Arab
American perspective in a post 9/11 age of intolerance and terror. I will explore the
protagonists’ pursuit of this dream, which has distanced them from their Arab origins, to
embrace the American consumerist tendency of their upper-middle-class lifestyle. I will
then investigate their subsequent downfall, as they are suddenly alienated from the
American lifestyle they have adopted for years, and consequently become estranged
even from one another, leading to the collapse of their marriage, and converting their
American dream into a nightmare.
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5.1 Embracing America
The American Declaration of Independence of 1776 proclaims that the people of
the United States of America are entitled to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,”
indicating that everybody should be able to achieve some level of fulfilment through
hard work, persistence and determination. The origin of the American dream concept
can be traced back to this phrase, although it did not receive any kind of formal
definition before 1931, the year that James Truslow Adams published his book entitled
The Epic of America. In this book, Adams asserts that the American dream is
that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller
for everyman with opportunity for each according to his ability or
achievement…it is not a dream of motor cars and high wages merely, but
a dream of a social order in which each man and each woman shall be
able to attain the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and be
recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous
circumstances of birth or position. (404)
Despite the strong belief in this dream, Stephen Matterson, among others, draws
attention to the many criticisms that have been leveled at it in literature, claiming
that the material aspect of the dream is a corruption of its social vision;
that it is an illusion through which inequalities are maintained and class
realities are concealed; that it fosters individual achievement at the
expense of social progress; that it supports ruthless plutocracy; that it
equates personal fulfillment with material gain, and that it results in a
narrowly selfish definition of success. (10)
Such considerations have not prevented people from all over the world from being
attracted to this dream, firmly believing that reaching the shores of America would give
them the opportunity to fulfill their own destiny and have a better life by means of hard
work and perseverance.
Salwa’s parents were among these people who headed for the United States in
order to try their luck there. Salwa was born in Chicago while her parents were
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unsuccessfully struggling to achieve their own American dream. Her parents ended up
returning to Jordan just after her birth because they “decided that it was not worth losing
our souls so we could have nice things. Our lives in Jordan were not so bad, and our life
in America was miserable” (Halaby 2007: 70). They made the choice of giving up their
unfortunate American experience and taking their four daughters back to their homeland
because they preferred a simple life in their own country among their own people to
living in America just to get some material gains while the father “was working like a
dog in a restaurant” (70). Salwa’s prompt return to Jordan has not prevented her from
always dreaming of going back to the country of her birth in order to seek her own
opportunities, in her turn, and do what her parents had not been able to: achieve the
American dream.
As a student at the University of Jordan, she once sees a flyer on the bulletin
board about a lecture entitled “Water is the key to our survival. A lesson in selfsufficiency… by Dr. Jassim Haddad, hydrologist from America” (238). What has
mostly attracted her attention, since she is a banking and economics student who has
nothing to do with hydrology, is really the “from America” part. In fact, attending this
lecture changes the course of her life forever. During the talk, Salwa feels “hypnotized”
(245) by the elegant orator, in “his expensive-looking suit and shiny leather shoes”
(249-50), and his stories that she has never known before. He leaves her so “transfixed”
(246) that, within few days of their first meeting, when he tells her about his intention to
meet her family and officially ask her to marry him, she immediately expresses her
consent. To his surprise, her answer is quick and clear: “I would like that very much. I
would like to go to America too” (68).
Therefore, Salwa accepts Jassem’s proposal because of the attraction of his
connection to America. She does not hesitate to sacrifice her relationship with her
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boyfriend Hassan, her home and her family in pursuit of the American dream. She is
charmed by Jassim’s “obvious wealth” (250) and his good job in America that would
satisfy her tastes which “are far too expensive for the likes of Hassan” (241). Thus,
Jassim has offered Salwa the opportunity to rectify her parents’ failed American
experience with the promise of wealth and success that America would grant her. At the
same time, it seems that Jassim, in his turn, is instinctively attracted to Salwa because of
her connection to America too. When he learns about her American citizenship the day
of the proposal, he reveals his desire to get it too: “At the very back of Jassim’s mind, in
only the faintest lettering, was the idea that Salwa’s American citizenship would enable
them both to stay. Forever, if he chose” (70). Although he tells Salwa’s father about his
intention to come back to Jordan for good after a year or so, he realizes that Salwa’s
citizenship would allow him to stay as long as he wants in his beloved America. Hence,
both Salwa and Jassim are mutually attracted to one another, whether consciously or
unconsciously, thanks to their link to America, which leads them to leave behind the
desert of the Middle East to settle down in the desert of Tucson, Arizona, with the hope
of realizing their American dream.
Halaby portrays the couple’s upper-middle-class life devoid of any reference or
connection with their homeland’s Middle Eastern values and religion. In this context,
Alixa Naff, in her analysis of the Arab American experience in the United States, points
out that “In their eagerness to succeed, the immigrant generation neglected to preserve
their cultural heritage” (35). Accordingly, Salwa and Jassim have voluntarily taken part
in an Americanization process seducing them away from their cultural and religious
roots, and thoroughly immersing them in the consumerist comfort of America’s
capitalist ideals. They are portrayed as a non-practicing Muslim couple who are able to
accumulate material luxuries thanks to Jassim’s important position at Arizona’s water
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company and Salwa’s work as a banker and a real estate broker: the couple has been
trying to fill the void engendered by the lack of spirituality in their American way of life
by secular and materialistic means.
Jassim has created a rigid routine for himself starting early in the morning when
“he got up, washed his face, brushed his teeth, and relieved himself, the beginning of a
morning ritual as close to prayer as he could allow... Jassim did not believe in God, but
he did believe in Balance. At five o’clock, with the day still veiled, Jassim found
Balance” (Halaby 2007: 3). He has been acting out this ritual of his for years now:
“Four days a week he woke up at this time, usually a minute or two before the alarm, so
he could drive to the Fitness Bar, swim, come home, and still be able to spend morning
time with his wife, Salwa” (3). He leaves his fancy house and drives his fifty-thousanddollar Mercedes “in a silent nine minutes” trip towards the Fitness Bar for his morning
forty-minute swim. Jassim seems to substitute the Muslim morning ritual prayer with
this ceremonial swim. Instead of waking up early to do a ritual ablution with water,
known as “wudu,” in order to perform the dawn prayer, or “salat al-Fajr,” he drives his
car: “Driving alone in the dark, alone anywhere, anytime filled Jassim with peace and
pleasure; driving was a secret drug, a secret god” (3). Therefore, this special god of his
leads him to the gymnasium pool where he submerges himself in water and performs
his swimming ritual. Consequently, over his many years of swimming, he feels that his
“lung capacity increased as his belief in God dwindled” (46).
On the other hand, unlike Jassim who is overtly described as an unbeliever, there
is no explicit evidence in the novel confirming or denying Salwa’s faith in God. While
she is portrayed as a non-practicing Muslim, she still uses many expressions and
phrases mentioning the name of God. For instance, she once says: “There is no god but
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God” (89), which is the first part of the “shahada.”60 She also often makes use of the
expression “Thank God” (59). Once she addresses her Lebanese friend and tells her:
“God protect you, Randa” (90). This kind of expression is commonly used in the Arabic
language; and it does not necessarily express the individual’s degree of devotion.
Anyhow, throughout the novel, Salwa is portrayed as not particularly spiritual, as she is
rarely engaged in any religious practices.
In this way, the Haddads have become avid participants in the American
consumer culture, believing it to be the sign of their belonging to America. Both of
them are fully engaged in their longed-for American life, mainly composed of “a giant
house filled with desired items, cars too large to fit in their owners’ garages, fine
designer clothes to decorate the manicured body and all to cover the shell” (101). In this
sense, the couple’s luxurious house reminds us of an episode in Halaby’s novel West of
the Jordan (2003) when Hala, one of the young female cousins, describes the “highclass American style” house of her uncle and his American wife. She perceives it as
“High-class American blah, no soul, no colors, only outside walls that wandered in and
stayed. Show-off house with no heart nor fancy bracelets” (Halaby 2003: 217). Jassim
and Salwa’s house seems to share this same luxurious style that Hala ends up rejecting,
seeing it as a threat to the survival of her memories of home as well as to the negotiation
of her transnational identity. For her, her uncle’s house is part of the assimilative U. S.
landscape that she rebels against.
Nevertheless, this is not the case of Jassim and Salwa, who are totally absorbed
by this assimilative tendency; and their house is a good example of that as it does not
contain any allusion to their Arab background:
60
The shahada is the first of the five pillars of Islam which means declaring belief in the oneness of God
and the acceptance of Muhammad as His Prophet. It states that: “There is no god but God, and
Muhammad is the Messenger of God.”
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That afternoon, driving up recently repaved asphalt to his nestled-in-the
hills home, Jassim pulled up his glinty Mercedes next to one of many
identical expectant mailboxes, each painted a muted rusty brown …
Briefcase, burdens and mail in hand, leather shoes crunching over
pebbles, he went up one, two, three wide brick steps and through the
heavy wood door into an extremely cool house. Salwa has forgotten to
turn down the air-conditioning before she left. Again… in the coolness of
his house, Jassim removed a gleaming glass from a glossy maple cabinet
and filled it with the purest spring water money could buy, delivered
biweekly up the hills by a gigantic complaining truck he never saw … he
pulled the trashcan out from under the right side of the sink (the spot
where 92 percent of Americans keep their kitchen trashcans, he
remembered hearing somewhere, though he doubted the statistic) so that
he could reach the recycling basket, into which he deposited a handful of
direct mail and ads (except for Salwa’s overpriced-underwear catalogue,
which he took a moment to glance through…). Salwa’s two magazines
(one with a cover not unlike the catalogue’s, the other with a photograph
of someone’s pristine white living room) found themselves on top of the
underwear catalogue. (Halaby 2007: 22-24)
This excerpt makes reference to one of Salwa’s passions: sexy and silky lingerie. In
fact, she is nicknamed “Queen of Pajamas” by her family because of her fascination for
silk pajamas since her childhood when she receives a pair of them as a gift: “she loved
the silk pajamas, loved how they made her feel beautiful and almost naked, both at the
same time” (47). What she most likes about them is actually the sense of “leisure”
attributed to this kind of garment. Consequently, once installed in the United States, she
becomes a compulsive shopper, and the more she gets immersed in American
consumerism the more the size of her pajamas decreases.
For the first few years after she returned with her new husband to the
country of her birth, her pajama purchases were in much the same style
as the original pajamas she had worn as a child, with long pants and a
long-sleeved shirt with tiny buttons. As she became more accustomed to
American life, however, her pajamas narrowed to fit her body more
precisely…As her years away from home lengthened and her
susceptibility to American marketing increased, her pajamas transformed,
morphed from elegant and flowing to tight, more revealing, more
alluring. (48)
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As Halaby observes, since Salwa started buying drawerfuls of silk pajamas in all sizes
and colors, she has steadily consolidated her consumer citizenship in America, erasing,
in this way, her transnational links to her homeland.
As I have argued, the Haddads’ pursuit of their American dream through
consumerism has prevented them from any approximation or involvement in
transnational political engagement. It is true that Salwa identifies herself as a
“Palestinian from Jordan” (34), but, since her return to the United States, she has never
taken part in any kind of activities related to the Arab American communities. Taking
into account the status of her own family as Palestinian refugees living in Jordan, it
seems that her American life has made her oblivious to the situation of her people.
Halaby symbolically marks Salwa’s rupture with any commitment to the Palestinian
cause the day she decides to marry Jassim and break her engagement with her
Palestinian refugee boyfriend Hassan. In fact, “Salwa was appreciative of Hassan’s
handsome face, sense of humor, and political activism, saw him as a symbol of
Palestine” (240). In this sense, her connection to America has obviously won over her
bond to Palestine placing her on the side of the powerful part, or the “colonizer” as her
father teasingly observes. The day Jassim officially asks her to marry him, Salwa’s
father asserts that his daughter “is Palestinian by blood, Jordanian by residence, and
American by citizenship. That is why she uses so much water and has a taste for luxury.
We tease her that she is really first world. A colonizer. You see, she even studies
money!” (70). Even though he is simply making a joke, his statement reveals that his
daughter’s American citizenship classifies her among the oppressors, the imperialists,
and the powerful. Therefore, Salwa’s Americanness, in addition to her eagerness for an
American life of her own, has contributed to the erasure of her transnational political
consciousness.
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As for Jassim, his decision to pursue a career as a hydrologist is inspired by a
conversation he has overheard as a child between his father and his uncle Abu Jalal, in
which the latter draws attention to the fundamental role of water in the Middle Eastern
region, claiming that the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is essentially based upon the
struggle to control the water resources. In this context, he notes that
All these fools, so worked up over land and rights and they don’t see the
greater picture. Water is what will decide things, not just for us but for
every citizen of the world as well. If we humans were smart, if we were
truly as evolved as they say we are, we would all work together to figure
out how to turn salt water into drinkable water, how to use water wisely,
preserve the water that falls each year … Mark my words: shortage of
water is what will doom the occupants of this earth, and they are fools
not to know that. (40-41)
Thus, Abu Jalal’s political statement helps open the young boy’s eyes to the importance
of water policies in the region, which inspires Jassim’s passion for water and his
subsequent decision to specialize in water management and rainwater harvesting. For
this reason, he went to America “filled with dreams of saving Jordan from drought and
dependency” (63).
Years later, Jassim delivers a lecture at the University of Jordan – where he
meets Salwa for the first time – about water preservation and self-sufficiency. In this
lecture, he passionately draws attention to the serious issue of water shortage affecting
about “forty per cent of the world’s population” (244), and, most importantly, its
contribution to the delineation of regional and international politics. His speech echoes
the teachings of Abu Jalal when he observes that “the 1967 war started because Israel
was caught trying to divert the Jordan away from the West Bank and Jordan. The result
of that war was that Israel controlled – controls still – most of the headwaters of the
Jordan itself, and is in partial or total control of all the aquifers” (244). Needless to say,
this politically conscious speech is delivered before his decision to give up his plans to
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return to Jordan and instead to remain in America for good. Unlike Cornelia, his former
lover and colleague on his doctoral program, he chooses to stay in the United States.
Before leaving for her native South Africa after graduating, she declines his marriage
proposal, reminding him that: “I have to go home, Jassim. You have to go home. We
are both of us wedded to our countries to change” (63). However, Jassim chooses to
wed his “Made in USA” Salwa (47) and, therefore, to tie his destiny to America for
ever. In this way, his status has changed from a temporary sojourner to a permanent
resident; and in the meanwhile, his aforementioned political consciousness and
eagerness to become actively involved in his home country’s water affairs in order to
put into practice his U.S. acquired knowledge, have steadily faded. Hence, Jassim has
obviously got “used to this easy American life” (278).
Among other signs of this easy life, for instance, is his abandoning Middle
Eastern culinary traditions for the comfortable American habit of ordering takeaway
food that he fondly appreciates: “Thankful for the luxury of living in a country where
any kind of food is minutes away, he got the pile of menus from a drawer beneath the
counter and began picking through. Ethiopian – too far away. Italian – no. Pizza – no.
Thai… yes, Thai food would be perfect” (131). Moreover, it is relevant to mention here
the absence of hot home-made food in the Haddads’ household. In this sense, Salwa
makes use of the fancy kitchen of her fancy house only once to cook dinner throughout
the novel. This adaptation to American eating habits is another element which reveals
the advanced Americanization process the Haddads are going through. As Nathalie
Handal observes, food, being “an identity definer… has been one of the most powerful
cultural transmitters leading Arab-Americans to their roots, and through food they have
preserved their roots” (2006:139). She stresses that “food is [a] leading cultural
component” (139) which plays a fundamental role in the survival of Arab traditions. In
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this respect, “Arab immigrants consider that if their children and grandchildren eat
Arabic food and like it, this confirms that they have embraced their roots and that they
belong to that civilization and honor it” (140). On these grounds, Jassim and Salwa’s
loss of Arab culinary habits reinforces their assimilative tendency towards the
consolidation of their sense of belonging to the United States and the accelerated
erasure of the connection to the Arab homeland. In fact, the couple’s relationship with
the members of the Arab American communities is limited to Salwa’s Lebanese friend
Randa and her family.
It is reasonable to assume that Halaby is critical of this kind of false belonging to
the United States that the immigrants – in this case Arabs – find themselves involved in.
She considers that America has seduced the Haddads away from their cultural and
religious values in return for a consumer citizenship based on the promise of wealth and
prosperity. In this sense, the writer suggests that Jassim and Salwa have willingly
sacrificed the values as well as the spiritual component of their Middle Eastern culture
in order to embrace the materialistic ideals of America’s capitalist culture that their
economic success has given them access to. Thus, the only wealth that American can
provide them with is monetary. In this way, Halaby extends her critique to twenty-firstcentury America that she perceives as the land where money is apparently the first
concern. She disapproves of America’s “consumer culture [that] is premised upon the
expansion of capitalist commodity production which has given rise to a vast
accumulation of material culture in the form of consumer goods and sites for purchase
and consumption” (Featherstone, 13).
Halaby, therefore, draws attention to the futility of the immigrants’ adoption of
this false sense of belonging to America through the example of Jassim and Salwa, who
come to realize the moral emptiness of their life in the United States when their short-
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lived American dream turns into a nightmare in the post-September 11 landscape. The
couple’s economic success and their deliberate assimilative tendency prove to be
insufficient for them to be accepted as members of the American community due to
their ethnic and religious backgrounds.
5.2 The Collapse of Jassim and Salwa’s American Dream
In this section, I hope to trace the steps in the downfall of this couple as a
consequence of a series of events which start to take place when the terrorist attacks
impinge on their lives. These tragic attacks lead Jassim and Salwa to understand that all
the luxuries they have been accumulating and surrounding themselves with cannot make
up for the growing alienation they are experiencing. The more their isolation increases,
the more they become conscious of their Arab identities that they have been trying so
hard to ignore and even eradicate.
At first, they don’t think about the possible repercussion of the attacks on their
own lives. For instance, when they start receiving calls from their families in Jordan to
check if they are all right after the attacks, Jassim does not understand their worries. He
thinks: “They were all intelligent human beings, and knew that America was a large
country and that New York was on the East Coast, and yet they had called to see if he
and Salwa were safe. It was ridiculous, and he had told his father so. ‘Baba, we are so
far away, there is nothing to worry about’” (21). Salwa also tells him about her
Lebanese friend Randa’s worries about the consequences of the terrorist attacks on
Arabs living in the United States, and more importantly on her own children. He gives
little importance to these fears and says, “Why would anyone hurt Randa’s kids? People
are not so ignorant as to take revenge on a Lebanese family for the act of a few Saudi
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extremists who destroyed those buildings” (21). Hence, Jassim dismisses any possible
essentialist perception that could associate them with suspect individuals or could lead
to reactions of race or religious hatred because of what had occurred. He is reluctant to
accept such a possibility. However, “He had promptly been proved wrong when a Sikh
gas station attendant in Phoenix was killed in retaliation” (21).
Shortly after that, the Haddads find themselves face to face with anti-Arab bias
for the first time in one of their visits to the mall when a shop assistant calls a security
guard to check on Jassim while he is waiting for Salwa outside a store. He tells his wife
that he is being followed by “a woman with a walkie-talkie on her shoulder. She thinks
she’s Clint Eastwood… Apparently I am a security threat” (28). The woman informs
them that she is simply doing her job “to protect the security of this establishment” (29).
Slawa furiously heads back to the shop clerks and confronts them: “Why did you call
that security guard on my husband? ... Did you think he was going to climb up and steal
that motorcycle? Or perhaps run off with some T-shirts?” (29). One of the clerks
responds, “He just scared me … He just stood there and stared for a really long time,
like he was high or something. And then I remembered all the stuff that’s been going
on” (30). Amazed, Salwa replies, “You thought he might want to blow up the mall in
his Ferragamo shoes” (30). She is dismayed at the girl’s suspicion of Jassim just
because of his Middle Eastern features, despite his wealthy appearance and especially
his expensive designer shoes. This scene clearly reveals that the Arab American woman
expects her husband’s class position to blur his ethnic background. According to her,
Jassim should be judged by his wealthy looks, those of a successful “professional man
in his forties” (30), instead of by his racial features. Thus, it seems that Salwa is more
bothered by the fact that her husband is being profiled as a potential terrorist, in spite of
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his middle-class background and his designer outfits, than that Arabs in general are
being targeted.
After that, when Salwa learns about the death of the clerk’s uncle in the attacks,
she responds: “I am sorry to hear that. Are you planning to have every Arab arrested
now?” (30). She realizes that the girl is trying to avenge her uncle’s death. From that
moment onwards, the couple start anticipating what might happen to them in the
coming days. They become increasingly aware of the adoption by many Americans of
the discourse propagated by the rhetoric of American politicians at the onset of the “war
on terror.” It is now clear that Middle Eastern ethnicity itself has become suspect.
Needless to say, Halaby makes of the September 11 terrorist attacks a turning
point in the Haddads’ lives. The collapse of each of the twin towers of the World Trade
Center comes to symbolize the downfall of Jassim and Salwa as a consequence of a
series of tragedies that has invaded the routine of their quiet lives. The spiritual
emptiness of the American life they have chosen to adopt, in addition to their
disconnection from their homeland’s culture and values, contribute to the couple’s
fragility as well as unpreparedness to confront the subsequent events. Besides, they are
forced to get out of the elite bubble they have been living within previously and to
approach unknown American realities when they come into contact with people from
lower classes. Hence, Jassim and Salwa become increasingly estranged from one
another and start to befriend strangers in their attempts to re-define their relationship
with America. The following two sections will attempt to describe the journey pursued
by each of them following the September 11 events.
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5.2.1 Salwa: Miss Made in America
The first step in Salwa’s process of collapse is portrayed through the “Big Lie”
(9) that starts to find a place between her and her husband. After nine years in the
United States, during which she has been entirely devoted to a quintessentially
American lifestyle, the young woman becomes increasingly aware of a certain void
shadowing her peaceful life. It seems that silk pajamas and wealth are not able to
compensate for the emptiness she starts feeling. Consequently, she stops taking her birth
control pills for four consecutive days without her husband’s knowledge. Halaby takes
the reader into Salwa’s thoughts:
Salwa’s Lie covered a glorious underbelly. It was not I didn’t take my
birth control pill but instead a much more colorful For a few years now
I’ve felt that I’ve been missing something in my life. That’s why I got a
real estate license. It wasn’t enough, though. I think having a child will
fill that void. I am going to try to get pregnant, even though Jassim says
he doesn’t want a child. (10)
Even the real estate license, that she gets in order to make extra money selling big
houses for wealthy American people, turns out to be insufficient for her, which leads
her to think about having a baby. However, on the fifth day, coinciding with the date of
September 11, she decides to start taking the pills again, but this is too late to prevent
her pregnancy. The dimensions of Salwa’s lie grow greater as not only does she
deliberately miss taking the pills but also gets pregnant without her husband’s
knowledge.
The more the young woman’s suspicions about her pregnancy grow, the more
she becomes aware of the difficulty of her life in America due to the new reality created
in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks. Her growing awareness about her Arab identity
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and belonging makes her unable to repress her nostalgia for Jordan, for home. For the
first time since she has been in America, the following thoughts occur to her:
We cannot live here anymore. All those year of schizophrenic reaction to
American culture, disdain for the superficial, which she had buried with
each new purchase and promotion, a spray of loathing she had denied in
order to justify her current arrangement – it all burst forward as if she
were seeing it for the first time, as though she had not spent the past nine
years living this very life.
It is different now, she thought. If I am pregnant, I cannot raise my child
here, away from everything I know. If I am pregnant. (54)
Thus, the mere thought of her possible pregnancy makes Salwa question her own life in
America as she comes to realize the false and artificial sense of belonging that links her
to this nation. In this sense, she understands that “the America that pulled at her was not
the America of her birth, it was the exported America of Disneyland and hamburgers,
Hollywood and the Marlboro man, and therefore impossible to find” (49). Hence, Salwa
believes that she cannot raise a child in this America that restricts her access to it, and
more importantly calls into question her very place in its society.
Salwa’s recurring thoughts about the nature of her relationship with America are
triggered by the fact that she increasingly feels suffocated by the exclusive form of
patriotism more and more surrounding her. She thinks, for instance, about Petra, her
colleague at the bank. Their association has always been rather distant. However, “In
the past month that distance had been stronger, an aftereffect of what had happened in
New York and Washington, like the cars sprouting American flags from their windows,
antennas to God, electric fences willing her to leave” (54). Salwa’s discomfort grows
further when Joan, her boss at the real estate agency, hands her two American flag
decals for her and Jassim, suggesting that they should hang them in the back window of
their cars. Joan explains that, “You never know what people are thinking, and having
this will let them know where you stand” (55). Thus, while the boss seems concerned
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by Salwa’s safety, she implicitly reveals her intention to convey an “imperative
patriotism” (Salaita 2011: 89) to her.
In this context, Michael Sally-Jensen asserts that, “Following the events of
September 11, 2011, the American flag has enjoyed a renewed popularity. As a show of
patriotism, Americans have been buying and displaying flags at an increased rate… The
flag is displayed as a show of support to troops serving overseas and stateside to defend
the values it represents to many Americans” (47). Besides, Steven Salaita points out that
Hanging the American flag on one’s car in the week following the events
of September 11 might mean many things: solidarity with the victims of
the attacks; a token of mourning; support for the government; a
metaphorical blank check for the use of military action. But no matter
what their inspiration, most of those who hang flags assumed that a
particular meaning would be transmitted and understood. (2011: 89)
In this way, Salwa feels Joan’s pressure, urging her to show her patriotic inclination
towards the American nation through clarifying her position as to whether she is with
“us” or with “them.” According to Joan, Salwa and her husband could inspire mistrust
and suspicion; that is why she considers that they need to hang American flags in order
to confirm that they belong to the good Arab/Muslim American category.
This certainly implies that Salwa is required to distance herself from her Arab
self and show her unconditional support for the general rhetoric dominating the official
American political discourse of the time, based on an “us/them binary.” In this context,
Carol Fadda-Conrey rightly notes that,
A persistent and insidious aspect of the us/them binary prevalent after
9/11 is an acknowledgement (albeit a short-sighted one) of the porous
and fluid nature of transnational identities, by which the Arab/Muslim
other (as conceived and constructed by so-called patriotic agendas) is no
longer exclusively located outside the realm of the US nation-state.
Instead, the difference allocated to a “them,” who are positioned as
backward and uncivil Arabs over there in the Arab/Muslim world, is
simultaneously inscribed on the racialized bodies of Arab Americans
over here in the U.S. Such logic yields a culture of suspicion and
paranoia that uses religious and ethnic markers as yardsticks for
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determining the American from the un-American, regardless of
citizenship status. (2011: 534-35)
Accordingly, for many Americans, it has become fundamental to employ efforts in
order to control and contain the Muslim/Arab “Other,” identified as the enemy within.
On these grounds, Salwa is dismayed by the message of hatred transmitted through a
radio station to the nation. The host’s voice and tone startle her: “Is anyone fed up yet?
Is anyone sick of nothing being done about all those Arab terrorists? In the name of
Jesus Christ! They live with us. Among us! Mahzlims who are just waiting to attack us.
They just want…” (Halaby 2007: 56). Therefore, Salwa’s mounting indignation about
the rising anti-Arab bias around her makes her perceive even the American flag as a
symbol of hatred and discrimination against her and against Arab people with whom she
has been forced to identify again.
In another episode, Salwa, once more, has to experience discrimination based on
her ethnicity and religion at her workplace when she is verbally abused by one of the
bank’s customers. The woman, who identifies herself as “a native Tucsonan, American
born and raised” (114), refuses to be helped by a Palestinian from Jordan. She declares
that, “I’d feel more comfortable working with someone I can understand better” (114).
Salwa at once ironically responds: “Of course. Would you like to work with a Mexican
man or an American lesbian?” (114). She also gives her the option to work with the
bank’s Chinese American manager. In this context, as Georgiana Banita observes,
Halaby’s intention is to show that “after September 11, Arab Americans have fallen one
step behind other social outsiders, being branded not only as second-rate citizens but
also as social hazards” (246). In fact, Salwa becomes more and more aware of this new
situation and, more importantly, about the deceptive sense of belonging that has linked
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her to the country of her birth, which makes her scrutinize “the life she was living.
Denying reality. That’s what I’ve been doing. Killing time, not living” (56).
Salwa’s hardships become worse when the lie established between her and
Jassim gets bigger. The miscarriage that she suffers and initially hides from her husband
can be considered another turning point in her life, foreshadowing her eventual
breakdown. The idea of conceiving a child has provided her with the hope of filling the
growing void dominating her dull and predictable American life. She perceives the baby
as a solution for the emptiness of her cold and comfortable house. However, the
traumatic experience of the miscarriage leads Salwa to question her whole marriage and
her choice to leave the man she loved and to move to America with Jassim who “had
offered her the best opportunity” (100). Thus, the young woman comes to realize that
“this was the life she had chosen, but it was not the life she wanted” (90). Her current
situation has raised many doubts about the longed-for American life that her husband
has provided for her, only to find that, “her American freedom had given her exactly
that: American freedom” (202), and nothing else.
Consequently, the miscarriage significantly contributes to worsening the void
created in Salwa’s life, leading her to further distance herself from her husband. In this
context, Halaby points out that
Emptiness is a dangerous substance, allows its possessor to believe in
taking rash measures, as a way to fill up the tank cheaply… Salwa
desperately wanted to fill it, but having nothing to barter with, no
weapons and no maps with which to find a well, she was left with
nothing more than her own flimsy silk-pajama fantasies of potential.
Today, this translated into welcoming what came her way, in the form of
a job in a real estate office that netted tens of thousands of extra dollars,
and in the form of a young college student with a tongue that tried to
dance in Arabic. (202-03)
As I have already argued, the new circumstances that have interrupted Salwa’s routine
reveal that she is not prepared to deal with these hardships due to her spiritual and moral
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paucity cultivated during her seven-year residence in the United States. Despite her
growing awareness of her new reality as well as the necessity to rethink her relation to
America and her homeland, she finds herself in a point of no return. In this way, she
distances herself “from God and from all she knew to be right in the world,” by having
an affair with Jake, her younger co-worker at the bank.
Salwa, looking for comfort after all the hardships that America has forced her to
endure, lets herself be seduced by this WASP young man. It is reasonable to assume
that the woman wants to avenge herself against this country which has classified her as
an outcast, through her involvement with a white man many years her junior. She
chooses him in order “to throw her faithfulness out of her customized American
window” (203), which reveals that she gets seduced, and even trapped, by America,
once more. Actually she has no idea who this part-time worker really is. Apart from his
studies at university and his job at the bank, Jake is a white-collar drug dealer who does
hard drugs. Halaby observes that, “It was as though he were two people: one who went
through the day doing what was expected of him, going to class, going to work, and one
who was entirely focused on maintaining his high and having sex” (170). Even his
interest in learning Arabic is related to his addiction, as he thinks it is “the language of
opium.” Here, Halaby explains between parenthesis that “since he told no one his
reason for taking the class, no one could correct him and tell him that Arabic was quite
definitely not the language of opium” (52). Jake actually refers to Afghanistan, the
country which dominates world opium production. Hence, the young American seems
oblivious to the fact that Afghanistan in not an Arab country. Opium has other
languages and Arabic is none of them. In this way, the writer reveals Jake’s essentialist
perception of Arab and Islamic countries, which is not at odds with the average
American’s knowledge, or rather lack of knowledge, about this part of the world.
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Exoticism is another reason for Jake’s interest in the Arabic language, as he
“thought it might seem exotic if he spoke a distant foreign language” (52). Once more,
Halaby highlights the profusion of orientalist representations that dominate the West’s
approach to the Middle East. Based on this misconception, Jake finds room for Salwa in
his orientalist caricatures portraying the Arab female as a “veiled woman and exotic
whore” (Kadi, xvi). Moreover, the young man’s internalization of one of the West’s
predominant exotic “image[s] of the Middle East as a space of erotic, sexualized
fantasy” (Jarmakani, 1), reaffirms the stereotypes and misperceptions of Arab and
Muslim cultures in the United States, and in this case, the orientalist and sexist
representations of Arab women. In this respect, Amira Jarmakani rightly notes that “the
categories of the veil, the harem, and the belly dancer have circulated in U.S. popular
culture for over a century as interpretive schemata through which U.S. consumers of the
image could engage with the themes of erotic fantasy, patriarchal domination, and
tradition, and timelessness, to name a few” (2). Besides, she draws attention to the fact
that “representations of Arab womanhood in U.S. popular culture are quite varied and
contradictory. In the contemporary context, for example, images of exoticized and
hypercommodified belly dancers coexist with representations of the veil as a cloak of
submission and oppression” (7).
Thus, Salwa’s background as an educated and successful professional does not
prevent Jake from profiling her as a sexual object in harmony with the widespread
stereotype of the “easily available Harem girl” (Jarmakani, 8). The colleague that Jake
perceives as “the gorgeous Arab” has definitely become “an obsession” (Halaby 2007:
170). He feels “a gigantic need to be with her physically. Behind each conversation sat
that need, that wanting, to the point where it was almost unbearable” (170). Halaby
reveals the combination of motives that lead to Jake’s deep attraction to Salwa: “She
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was mature without seeming old. This mixed with her foreignness made her
sophisticated. Exotic. And married. The challenge of this combination turned him on,
and he wondered if all Arab women had this allure (the physical one and the shadow of
a man behind them) and if that was why they veiled themselves” (171). Therefore, the
duality of harem and veil triggers Jake’s growing sexual desire towards Salwa. For this
reason, taking her to bed becomes a challenge for him that he has to fulfill,
circumventing what he considers to be her husband’s control. He dreams of releasing
her from the dark Arab male’s oppression in order to integrate her into a white
American man’s world of sexual fantasy. So now Jake has another reason to learn
Arabic: “it was because he desperately wanted to make love to an Arab woman and he
thought this was the best way to get to her” (171).
Unaware of Jake’s real motives, Salwa succumbs to his courting. When he
invites her for dinner in his apartment for the first time, she hesitatingly decides to go
only to cancel the date, to finally end up in bed with him:
she allowed an American boy to push off her shoes with his toes, to
unbutton her shirt and remove it, allowed him to unzip her skirt and place
her clothes neatly on a chair next to the futons… Watched as he removed
his own clothing in a heap… He knelt on the floor and she allowed him
between her legs while she sat on the edge of the futons, in her matching
bra and panties, lacy and lovely, recently purchased from Victoria’s
Secret and worn, coincidentally, for the first time today… she vanished
and became a part of him, an adored, desired, and moving part of this
young American man, barely more than a boy. (210)
Hence, “intrigued … by her ability to let it happen” (212), Salwa allows herself to be
desired and loved by Jake in order to compensate for her frustration for miscarrying the
child that Jassim did not want in any case, and for being rejected by America.
After their first sexual intercourse, Salwa starts looking at the reflection of her
naked body in the mirror of the bedroom closet and thinks: “Is this what Jake had seen
and said was beautiful? She searched for herself in this reflection, pleading for
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familiarity with the thick legs, wide hips, round breasts, simple face, nothing like the
bodies and faces shown on American television” (211). Although Salwa recognizes her
Arab shape and features in contrast with American ones, she is unable to find herself in
the reflection in front of her. In an act of self-recognition, she finds an Arab body with
no Arab soul. Once more, the young woman realizes the extent of the de-culturation
tendency she has adopted during her stay in America. In an American man’s bedroom,
she observes the reflection of her naked body. Thus, they “were face to face, almost
touching. They stared at each other, stranger at stranger. One loved silky pajamas and
was outraged by injustice; the other had allowed a baby to die within her and in
compensation had let herself be entered by a man who was not her husband” (211).
However, she allows this stranger part of her to enjoy being unfaithful to her husband
with Jake: “she didn’t want him to stop” because she “became someone new” (212).
Salwa’s connection with Jake introduces her to a new world unknown to her so
far. On the one hand, she is experiencing new sensations based on thrilling encounters
of “American sex” (158) followed by feelings of guilt. While she “thought she could
live like this for ever, floating in pleasure” (212), she washes away her lover’s traces in
order to not “smell Jake on her the whole way home and be disgusted” (213). On the
other, this affair takes Salwa out of her upper-middle-class neighborhood and makes her
discover a new face of America. Her encounters with Jake introduce her to a lower-class
reality for the first time. She observes Jake’s apartment complex composed of “a series
of identical misshapen two-story cubes painted different shades of brown to blend in
with the desert” (206). In her first visit to this apartment, her car window is shattered
and all her cash is stolen from her purse that she has left there. In this way, Salwa is
forced to encounter realities of American poverty that she has been blinded to before. It
is reasonable to assume that Halaby means to reveal that Salwa’s prior commitment to
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American capitalism has prevented her from discovering the nation’s class hierarchy
while she is contained in her middle-class bubble.
Consequently, Salwa’s growing alienation makes her turn to her Lebanese friend
Randa looking for comfort because she is the one who “reminded her of home” (91).
Unlike Salwa, the Lebanese woman has managed to keep her “fingers stuffed with
centuries of wisdom, knots of history and meaning” (91), thanks to her uninterrupted
connection with her religious as well as her cultural heritage. In this way, Randa has not
let America persuade her to lead an all-American lifestyle like her friend, and has
retained her devotion to religion and her Arab traditions. She provides her American
house with some flavors of her homeland like the Arab TV channels, for instance. She
tells her friend: “You don’t know what you’re missing without satellite TV. It’s like
being home” (283). Hence, the day she feels like confessing to someone about her
infidelity, Salwa decides to meet her Lebanese friend. She remembers how her “brown
habits turned white with practice” (282) and ends up heading to Randa’s house without
calling before, as opposed to American ways. There, Randa brings the taste of home to
Salwa through the Arabic coffee she prepares for her:
Randa cracked three cardamom pods, ground the seeds with a pestle, and
dropped the tiny grains into the water… The water bubbled wildly and
Randa pulled the pot off the burner and added two spoonfuls of coffee,
each heaped to the ceiling. She stirred them in, reached across the
continental United States, stretched her arm across the Atlantic until she
found Beirut, and put the pot back on the burner, and it boiled, and she
stirred in her love for her friend, and it boiled, and she smiled at Salwa,
and the coffee boiled away thousands of miles of homesickness, and
Randa turned off the burner. (283-84)
Salwa observes her friend who “looked relaxed. Happy. Welcoming” (282) and
asks her if she is happy in America. Randa’s answer is significant as it reveals her own
perception of happiness and of life in America. She expresses her satisfaction with her
family life and explains that she is happy with her husband and children. Moreover, her
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conception of America is quite different from Salwa’s. She explains: “Do I love
America? It certainly is easier here than at home. You live your life without being
burdened by basic needs, so you can focus on larger things. But American life, as I see
it, lacks flavor, that tastiness you find at home” (283). Therefore, Randa tries to fill her
life in America with the flavor and taste of home through retaining a strong connection
with her Arab heritage. Salwa now comes to appreciate her friend’s negotiated lifestyle
where she combines her homeland’s values with the host country’s, without being
seduced by American temptations like her friend. Salwa asks her the following
question: “Don’t you ever worry about losing yourself here?” to which Randa replies:
“No, I keep what is important and the rest is just… superficial” (283).
When Salwa confesses her affair with Jake to Randa, her friend advises her to go
back to Jordan and spend some time there: “‘You need to go home for a little while.
You need to be with your mother and sisters’ And your culture, where things like this
can’t happen…” (288). Thus, Randa argues that Salwa needs to regain her sense of
belonging to her homeland and to recuperate her Arab and Muslim identities that have
been undermined during her stay in the United States. In this way, according to Randa,
the solution for Salwa’s growing feelings of displacement is to go back home for a
while in order to regain her true self and save her marriage. Salwa decides to take her
friend’s advice and “resolved to fly away and tuck herself into the safety of her true
home” (289). Obviously, while Jordan comes to stand for safety, according to the young
woman, America represents the nightmare that she wants to escape. Salwa recognizes
that “this was the life she had chosen, but it was not the life she wanted” (91).
After she takes the decision to leave “while [she] still can” (289), she heads to
her lover’s apartment to say goodbye. There, in the garden, she sees three Mexican
immigrant gardeners digging in the soil; and she “imagined the miles of desert they
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must have crossed for the opportunity to trim and mow and prune, the perils they must
have endured to have their clear shot at the American Dream. ‘It’s a lie!’ she wanted to
shout. ‘A huge lie.’” (316). Salwa feels identified with these Mexican immigrants who
obviously do not enjoy her upper middle class status and who, just like her, have left
their homelands for the pursuit of the American dream. Unlike her, they have ended up
working in difficult and hard conditions, occupying the bottom of the social scale. It is
reasonable to assume that Salwa seems to see and recognize these kinds of people for
the first time in her life. She cannot prevent herself from feeling solidarity with these
immigrants with whom she shares the same immigrant experience in spite of her
American citizenship: “She looked at those dark men… and from a distance she could
see their sacrifices, the partial loss of self that they too must have agreed to in coming to
America” (317).
However, Salwa’s aim of returning to Jordan in order to recuperate the lost part
of herself clashes with her lover’s expectations of making her leave her husband to be
with him. To her dismay, he shouts: “So you are running back to the pigsty?” (320).
Once she crosses the doorstep, he attacks her physically with a picture silver frame,
while he screams: “Bitch! Goddamn fucking Arab bitch! You ruined everything” (322).
He repeatedly smashes the frame on her, leaving her body bruised and cut, and her face
disfigured. Jake’s vicious reaction reveals that the fact of being rejected by Salwa, by a
Muslim Arab woman, has deeply dented his self-esteem. Being a white American male,
he refuses to be rejected by a Muslim female that he has managed to manipulate and
sexually dominate for a while. Moreover, he feels that his masculinity has been harmed
and challenged when he loses control of Salwa, taking into account that his attitude
towards her has been that of the submissive and docile Arab female that he is familiar
with through American media. For this reason, he considers it to be unacceptable to be
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abandoned by a supposedly submissive and inferior woman. Consequently, the only
way for him to restore his masculine as well as racial superiority over Salwa is through
the use of his physical strength, beating her and maiming her beautiful face.
Helped by one of the Latino gardeners while waiting for the ambulance, “Salwa
lay bathed in shame; at that moment she would have given the world to have found the
rewind button. She would never have said yes to Dr. Haddad” (323). Hence, she ends up
in the hospital in a critical condition, with Jassim by her side unaware of the motives
behind what has occurred.
5.2.2 Jassim: The frustrated perfectionist
Through Jassim’s character, Halaby recounts the story of a successful scientist
who happens to be a Muslim Arab living in America in the aftermath of the September
11 attacks. The succession of tragedies that befall him, and over which he has no
control, leads to his downfall. Just after the attacks, and unlike his wife, Jassim has
remained reluctant to think about the possible consequences of such events on his life.
In this sense, he considers that Randa’s worries about her children’s safety are irrational
and exaggerated. Moreover, he is unable to see the connection between the attacks and
his office secretaries’ change of attitude towards him. He thinks, “Why? Surely not
because of what happened in New York? He had as little connection to those men as
they did, and there was no way he could accept that anyone be able to believe him
capable of sharing in their extremist philosophy. No, he was not indulging this notion”
(Halaby 2007: 22). Jassim does not find any reason for the girls’ behavior during the
meeting a day after the attacks, as “at the far end of the table from him [they] stared and
scribbled notes to each other. It was clear that he was the subject of these notes” (25).
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In addition to that, he realizes that the secretaries are not the only ones who
behave strangely that day: “Jassim felt a vague prickle as he reviewed his comments at
the meeting, as he analyzed the dropped gazes of several of the staff members, the less
than warm reception he has received from the city’s engineers, a group who usually
welcomed him with doughnuts and laughter” (25-26). Nevertheless, Jassim decides to
prevent paranoia from affecting his mind and to stop thinking about the meeting and his
colleagues’ behavior. “‘Finish,’ Jassim said aloud, refusing to entertain paranoid
thoughts” (26). Jassim’s denial of the new reality persists for some time during which
he just counts on the good intentions of the American people surrounding him,
believing that he would not be mistaken for someone who sympathizes with terrorists.
His naïve way of thinking about this specific prickly subject is explained by his belief
that his professional success and consumer citizenship would protect him during this
kind of national crisis. He thinks that as he has nothing to do with extremist and terrorist
ideologies, no one will raise any doubts about him. Moreover, Jassim does not attach
any importance to his wife’s worries after the assassination of the Sikh gas station
attendant in response to the terrorist attacks, when she warns him that this “sort of
retaliation there is going to be at governmental level for what happened. Jassim, it’s not
going to be easy, especially for you” (21). Salwa’s warning is pertinent, taking into
account the nature of her husband’s job as a hydrologist having access to the Arizona
water deposits. However, Jassim keeps ignoring the increasing signs which foreshadow
the downfall of his American dream.
The images of destruction haunt Jassim’s imagination for days and even disturb
the peace of his morning swimming ritual. Once in the pool,
his mind wrapped around the pictures of those two massive buildings
collapsing to the ground so neatly beneath the columns of smoke, that he
returned to the impossibility of what he had seen. What entered into
someone’s mind to make him (them!) want to do such a thing? It was
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incomprehensible. And unnatural – human beings fought to survive, not
to die. And had they, those many people who seemed to join together in
crazy suicide, had any idea that they would cause such devastation? That
both buildings would collapse? Lap after lap found him turning this over
in his mind, the planning of destruction and the extent of that destruction.
(20)
Jassim’s scientific mind restricts his thinking to the physical and material extent of
destruction as he actually seems unable to imagine the possible repercussion of the
attacks on his own life as well as on his fellow Arabs and Muslims living in America. In
fact, Jassim’s nightmare – and subsequent downfall – starts the day he learns about his
wife’s secret pregnancy and subsequent miscarriage
From the very beginning of that day, Jassim is prevented from finding his
emotional balance through his ceremonial swim. When he gets to the gym early in the
morning, the receptionist informs him that the pool is closed because someone has
defecated in it. Hence, he heads back home to find Salwa sobbing loudly. Her
confession about her pregnancy and miscarriage unsettles him to the point that when he,
exceptionally, goes to the pool after work for a swim looking for peace and balance, he
cannot prevent himself from thinking about the baby and the miscarriage. In his drive
back home, he is so disturbed and anxious that he feels “sweat occupying the space
between his hands and the polished steering wheel, the first sign that he and the car are
not really One” (116-17). Consequently, Jassim has an accident as he runs over Evan
Parker, a teenager on a skateboard, and kills him. Therefore, the Arab man’s world
starts falling apart that same day, as not only does he hide the boy’s death from Salwa,
but he also becomes disconnected from his wife and from his daily routine. The
consequence of these events, that he has no control over, is that Jassim starts neglecting
his work, and later finds himself involved in an FBI investigation, and fired from his
job.
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Needless to say, this accident plays a vital role in revealing that Jassim’s sense
of belonging to America is false. While standing by Evan lying on the ground before the
arrival of the ambulance, he tries to reassure the teenager’s friend: “‘It’s going to be
alright,’ Jassim said, saying words he did not believe, trying to make that ultimate jump
into American life, the one that promises happy ending for everyone if you just believe
it hard enough” (119). Thus, Halaby draws attention to the fact that Jassim finally
becomes aware of the futile efforts he has been making to be accepted in America. He
understands that the accident is about to drive him away from the center of his
comfortable upper middle life milieu to the margins. In this way, Jassim is now
conscious that American happy endings are not for him, a Muslim Arab living in
America. This tragic accident, therefore, paves the way for Jassim’s marginalization as
well as condemnation because of his ethnic and religious background. He deliberately
isolates himself from his wife, already affected by the miscarriage, and hides the
tragedy of the accident in order to stop it from upsetting her further.
In the aftermath of this terrible event, Jassim’s growing loss of enthusiasm about
swimming symbolizes his increasing lack of balance. In the early morning, he feels like
a “dead elephant, a giant pinned to his bed by heavy thoughts.” (148). When he wakes
up in the morning,
Jassim crept into consciousness to find reality worse than any dream, any
nightmare… The thinnest voice prodded at him, nudged him towards the
edge of the bed. Swimming is what keeps you even, gives you control, the
voice said.
I have no control, Jassim answered back. No control. It’s gone. My life is
no longer in my hands. This thought overpowered a quieter wish for God,
for belief, for an answer, or at the very least Balance. He lay at the edge
of the bed, his thought a crowded pile of characters competing for space
on the marquee: Salwa Shops for Pajamas, Jassim’s Child, Water,
Swimming, Officer Barkley… (148)
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Jassim is deeply affected by these two tragedies, made even worse by the loss of
connection with his wife, which leads him to try to endure and get through it by himself.
The feeling of guilt haunts him, as he considers himself responsible for Salwa’s
miscarriage for discarding the idea of having any children, and to this is added Evan’s
death. Jassim even perceives his Mercedes as the “murderous vehicle” (149), or “his
death machine” (153).
In the meanwhile, Jassim becomes the subject of racial profiling conducted by
some members of his office staff, in addition to Jack Franks, a former U.S. marine who
goes to the same gym as him. Consequently, the Arab American man becomes the focus
of an FBI investigation based on uncorroborated reports over his work as a hydrologist.
In this way, Jassim is pointed out according to the hegemonic racial configuration that
marks Arabs and Muslims as fanatical terrorists, threatening U. S. national security.
Thus, Halaby here takes the reader to the Bush administration’s “war on terror” ethos,
when discrimination against Muslims and Arabs became legitimate and justifiable. In
this context, Evelyn Alsultany draws attention to what she calls the process of
“momentary diversity,” which took place after 9/11, consisting of the reconfiguration of
race and racism in the United States, and paralleled by “a simultaneous racialization and
criminalization of Arabs and Islam” (207). She further explains that,
By momentary diversity, I am referring to a process by which the
American citizen came to be ideologically redefined as diverse instead of
white and united in the “war on terror,” defined in opposition to Arabs
and Islam, signifies as terrorist and anti-American. Thus non-Arab, nonMuslim racialized groups became temporarily incorporated into the
notion of American identity, while Arabs and Muslims were racialized as
terrorist threats to the nation. By racialization, I am referring to the
process of assigning derogatory meaning to particular bodies
distinguished by ethnicity, nationality, biology, or geography, as well as
legitimizing discourses, in this case the process by which the categories
“Arab” and “terrorist” came to be conflated, consolidated, and
interchangeable. Thus racism toward Arabs and Muslims is configured as
legitimate and racism toward other groups illegitimate. (207-08)
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Therefore, as Alsultany points out, racism and discrimination against Arabs and
Muslims gained legitimacy and even respectability in the United States. This
legitimization process was then used in order to justify the government’s practices and
policies adopted in the “war on terror” context against the members of the Arab and
Muslim communities.
In this way, taking into account the increasing depiction of Muslim and Arab
citizens as a threat to national security, many of them came under the scrutiny and
vigilance of the so-called citizen patriots who were voluntarily collaborating with the
government in its “war on terror.” Georgina Banita asserts that these “citizens [are]
galvanized by Bush’s call to act as the eyes and ears of the government” (246). In this
context, she makes reference to Judith Butler’s concept of “petty sovereigns” who are
“instrumentalized, deployed by tactics of power they do not control, but this does not
stop them from using power… These are petty sovereigns, unknowing to a degree about
what work they do, but performing their acts unilaterally and with enormous
consequences” (65).61 Hence, these hypervigilant citizens start performing “a
responsibility initially reserved for members of bureaucratic institutions but now
extended to the entire nation” (Banita, 246). It is Jassim’s misfortune to come under the
vigilance of some of these citizens.
One of these American characters is Jack Franks, with whom Jassim has
coincided in the gym a few times. This retired marine in particular feels resentment
towards Jordanians in general, triggered by a personal experience. The first day he
meets Jassim, shortly before the attacks, he tells him about his daughter who has left the
United States to marry her Jordanian lover and settle down in his country: “I went to
Jordan once … Followed my daughter there. She married a Jordanian. Not one like you,
61
Butler, Judith. Precarious Life: The Powers of Mourning and Violence. New York: Verso, 2004. Print.
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though. This one was from the sticks—or the sand, as the case was … She converted.
She’s an Arab now. Probably still lives there. Don’t know. Haven’t talked with her for
years” (Halaby 27: 6). It is reasonable to assume that Jack’s interest in Jassim is partly
motivated by his daughter’s case and, particularly, his failure to make her change her
mind and return to America. He displays his ignorance about the Middle East when he
mentions his daughter’s conversion, which reveals the conflation of Arab ethnicity and
the Muslim religion. In this respect, Halaby sheds light on a recurrent subject
concerning the interchangeable use of the words Arab and Muslim in mainstream
America, ignoring the fact that not all Arabs are Muslim, and not all Muslims are Arab.
Hence, Jack considers that his daughter has been seduced away by a Jordanian man to
convert into something un-American, which renders the terrorist attacks an opportunity
for him to get revenge for his loss. For this reason, Jassim, as a Jordanian man, is an
ideal target.
In addition, Jack thinks that by watching Jassim, he will be serving his country
and giving a meaning to his life if he gets involved in an official investigation against
him. He estimates that Jassim “was not the man he portrayed himself to be, though he
was not necessarily sold on his being a terrorist. He had already talked to his FBI friend
Samuel about him. Twice. Would continue to keep him posted as Samuel had
suggested” (173). To justify himself, Jack takes the reader to the core of the “war on
terror” rhetoric, when he reasons to himself the following:
These are some scary times we live in… My number-one duty is to help
protect my country. The president had said that specifically, that it is our
job to be on the alert for suspicious behavior, to help the police, to be the
eyes and ears of the community. Besides, if it turns out to be nothing,
then, no harm done to anyone. Dammit, if you’re going to live in this
country, you’re going to have to abide by the rules here. (173)
305
Accordingly, judging Jassim to be a possible threat to the country’s security, Jack
literally follows the Bush administration’s instructions, and decides to lead his own
investigation into him in the fitness center, asking for the help of Diane, the gym’s early
morning clerk, as well as warning the FBI against him.
Jack is not the only one who contacts the FBI concerning Jassim. The
“conservative right” (107) office girls, as they are referred to by Marcus, his boss, have
done the same thing to him. Bella, the receptionist, is the one who gets in contact with
the FBI to report him. Jassim is dismayed to learn that “an FBI investigation [is]
launched by a receptionist whose main duties were answering the telephone and making
photocopies” (272). According to one of her colleagues, Anita, after September 11,
Bella gets so angry that she “wanted to get revenge and [she] wanted to be involved in
that revenge” (271). Thus, she has been spying on Jassim and taking notes about
everything he says and does. She even notices the changes in his behavior coinciding
with Salwa’s miscarriage and the tragic accident. Anita explains to Jassim that,
Bella called the FBI on you a couple of days after it happened, told them
you were a rich Arab with access to the city’s water supply and you
didn’t seem very upset by what had happened. It seemed the FBI was not
interested at first. Bella started to keep a notebook on you. She wrote
down everything you said, what you wore, how you seemed. Then two
months or so ago she said that she thought something was wrong, that
your behavior changed, seemed bothered and that she was going to call
the FBI on you again. Report you. (271-72)
Therefore, Bella is convinced that it is her duty towards her country to drive this Arab
hydrologist out and prevent his access to the town water supply. She portrays Jassim as
the enemy who has to be excluded and if necessarily jailed, trying, in this way, to take
justice into her own hands. In addition, she gets in contact with Jassim’s clients in order
to inform them that he is being investigated by the FBI, which further complicates his
situation.
306
When approached by two FBI agents in his office, Jassim’s boss Marcus is
appalled that his employee and friend has become the subject of a “witch hunt” (224)
sponsored by the state. They ask him about Jassim’s religious and political views, about
his “reaction to September 11” and “to the war in Afghanistan”, as well as about his
opinion on “Jordan’s leadership” and his political activities (224). Marcus’s answers
confirm that Jassim belongs to the good citizen category when he portrays him as
“reliable and as apolitical and unreligious a person as I know” (224). It is relevant to
notice here Halaby’s intention to highlight the official perception of a good Arab
American citizen as necessarily an apolitical and unreligious person who does not get
involved in serious issues related to his community and the Middle East. In this respect,
Carole Fadda-Conrey draws attention to “the recurring confluence among political
dissent, Muslim identity, and terrorism in national security (as well as public) rhetoric
after 9/11” (2011: 544). As I have already argued, the main objective of this official
discourse in the U.S. is to radically contrast Arabness, on the one hand, and
Americanness, on the other. In this sense, Jassim becomes suspect by the mere fact of
being an Arab Muslim man, which signifies the suspension of his membership in the
club of American good citizenship. Knowing this, Marcus seems to be aware of his
friend’s delicate situation from the very beginning, as he first tries to defend him before
the FBI agents, and later offers him help.
Moreover, Marcus appears worried about the violation of Jassim’s civil rights as
he advises him to hire a lawyer due to the seriousness of his situation. In this respect, he
complains to his wife about having “the Christian right” working for him (235), and that
as a consequence of their attitude, “Jassim could be arrested, maybe even deported”
(236). However, asked by his wife if he thinks that “Jassim is capable of doing
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something bad to the water supply” (236), Marcus cannot hide his growing distrust
towards his friend, questioning his change in behavior:
Something had been different in Jassim lately, something Jassim was not
talking to him about. It could be anything, he had told himself over and
over. It could be medical, or something in his marriage … Not for the
first time, his wife had brought to the surface the very thing that was
nagging at him, harvested that vague doubt that had been lodged way
back in his brain, undercutting the faith he had in others. (237)
Obviously, Jassim has not told Marcus yet about his personal troubles, about Salwa’s
miscarriage and Evan’s death. Besides, the boss starts receiving calls from the
company’s clients who, alerted by Bella and contacted by the FBI, have expressed their
intention to stop working with Jassim, now newly labeled as a suspect hydrologist. One
of these clients, for instance, asserts that “Jassim has done great work for us in the past,
but now I feel I need to scrutinize everything. I need to look at motive, at what he is
getting from us. I simply don’t have the time. I want to give you this contract, but as
long as he is the senior hydrologist, I cannot” (269).
Consequently, Marcus ends up ceding to pressure and fires Jassim. In fact, the
latter “could not change who he was, and Marcus recognized consciously that in part he
was firing him for that reason” (296). Moreover, he justifies himself saying that “we’re
going to lose the business if I don’t make an act of good faith to the people we do
business with” (297). Thus, Jassim’s termination becomes this act of good faith that
Marcus needs to make in order to recuperate his lost contracts and save his business, on
the one hand, and, on the other, to whitewash his name and that of the company from
the traces of the supposed enemy who has been working there for years. Hence, Halaby
implies that Jassim’s otherness becomes more and more obvious and noticeable, which
makes his presence there unacceptable. Finally, he gets escorted out of the company to
his car. Even though Marcus has previously warned Jassim about the possibility of
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becoming the subject of a witch hunt, he ends up taking part in it. As Steven Salaita
observes, “Even Jassim’s great advocate – his progressive, anti-Republican, antiwar
boss, Marcus – has doubts about Jassim’s humanity” (2011: 88).
Hence, Jassim’s struggle to become a good citizen and adopt American ways
turns out to have been all in vain at this difficult time. He realizes how artificial his
sense of belonging to the United States has been when he is deprived of the opportunity
to prove that he is still the same good citizen. In this way, he is excluded on the basis of
his ethnic and religious affiliations, emphasizing his un-Americanness. He is definitely
perceived as the Other, that is to say, the enemy. Jassim’s situation reminds one of a
passage from Obasan (1981) by the Japanese Canadian novelist Joy Kogawa, which
explores the internment experience of a Japanese Canadian family during WWII. Naomi
is a school girl who discovers that she is a “Jap,” and that all Japs are bad. Despite her
father’s reassuring her that she is Canadian, Naomi is puzzled by the implications of her
discovery: “It is a riddle, Stephen tells me. We are both the enemy and not the enemy”
(70). This reveals the paradox of being and not being Japanese and / or Canadian, and
dwells too on the members of the community’s desperate attempts to prove themselves
Canadians, and their strong sense of belonging to this nation in spite of the trauma of
the internment camp. In her analysis of Obasan, Eulalia Piñero Gil observes that this
novel
represents silence and memory of the Japanese Canadian community
during the traumatic experience of the internment. The novel investigates
the historical events, the construction of the female and ethnic
subjectivities through the voice of its child narrator Naomi Nakane. This
is a very painful experience which coincides with Naomi’s identity
construction process. Kogawa speaks about the need to describe the
internment experience as a historical re-discovery process and the
necessary re-definition of the Japanese ethnic identity within the
Canadian society. (259)62
62
Piñero Gil, Eulalia. “Obasan de Joy Kogawa: Silencio y memoria de los campos de internamiento en
Canadá durante la Segunda Guerra Mundial.” Ecos de la Memoria. Ed. Margarita Almela, et al.
Madrid: UNED, 2011. 259-272.
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Jassim does not have to endure the internment experience, but he comes to
understand the futility of such attempts and efforts to be accepted as the process of his
marginalization reaches its peak when his professional career is shattered and destroyed.
In this respect, he thinks that Americans
shouldn’t be able to pull accounts on the basis of his being an Arab. Yes,
finally he saw what had been sitting at the back of his consciousness for
some time in a not-so-whispered voice: with or against. But was he not
with? I understand American society, he wanted to scream. I speak your
language. I pay taxes to your government. I play your game. I have a
right to be here. How could this be happening? (234)
It is hard for Jassim to accept this radical change in his status from being a rich and
prestigious hydrologist doing business with the town’s most prominent firms, to
becoming an unemployed outcast judged to be a risky citizen and a threat to home
security. To his dismay, he finds that as an Arab he has no right to be in America
anymore. In this sense, Halaby rightly points out that:
In more than a decade of good citizenship, he had never for a minute
imagined that his success would be crossed out by a government censor’s
permanent marker, that his mission would be absorbed by his nationality,
or that Homeland Security would have anything to do with him. Things
like this aren’t supposed to happen in America. (299)
Hence, the American identity Jassim has created for himself during his stay in America
has proved to be artificial and illusory as it does not represent a real sense of belonging
to this country. This same country, that had once provided him with all the necessary
elements for success, is provoking the collapse of his professional career and his life. In
this way, an FBI-sponsored witch hunt has cost this Arab man his job as well as his
American Dream.
As his own place in American society is called into question, Jassim starts
looking at the people on the margins, towards which he himself has recently been
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pushed. He feels that “it had taken killing a boy for his soul to awaken … he saw that
the past nine years (and even more than that) had been a sabbatical from real life, a rich
man’s escape from the real world” (218). When he abandons his daily swimming ritual,
Jassim starts driving aimlessly through the streets early in the morning:
It was still dark as he drove down the comforting, looping street and
approached the always busy Oracle Road, where he found there was an
entire world awake… A bus has just deposited its human contents by the
side of the road and they drifted north and south, some west into the
parking lot of an electronics store… Jassim felt as though he were
watching a movie. While many times he had driven into the city early,
especially years ago, when his work times had not been so regular, he
had never noticed these people. (151)
This newly acquired awareness takes him to Penny, a waitress at Denny’s where he
starts having greasy American breakfasts, and to Mary, the dead boy’s mother.
At this critical moment of his life, Jassim realizes that he has been living in a
bubble preventing him from being in touch with many aspects of American life. After
so many years spent in America, he is shocked by his lack of knowledge about the
country. For instance, during one of his morning drives, he has the opportunity to make
the following reflection:
Daily he traveled, his packed duffel bag ready in case he changed his
mind, up and down the streets of Evan’s neighborhood and
neighborhoods beyond, greedy to see into lives he knew nothing about.
Somehow this aspect of American culture had escaped him. He’d been
the edges of it but had been buffered by a job that had him working with
a more educated group of people, by an income that had him living
among professionals, white-collar as opposed to blue. The more he
drove and stared and watched through windows and saw people in their
yards and looked at their houses, the more fascinated he became, amazed
at the years he had spent without ever really seeing… Jassim’s awareness
didn’t happen in one lightening change; no one event occurred to peel all
those layers from his eyeballs, to remove the bubble-wrap around his
consciousness. The movement of his thoughts was gradual, a smooth
inclined ride. (274-75)
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It is when Jassim gets introduced to the real America that he meets Penny. He feels
immediately connected to her after the faintness he suffers in the cheap diner. The
waitress identifies it as “a panic attack.” She explains that, “it’s where you have too
much crap loaded in your head and sometimes you just get this electric shock that bangs
everything together and for a minute you think you’re going to die, or puke, or pass out,
but then it passes” (154). In this way, overwhelmed by sadness and guilt after the
accident, Jassim finds consolation in Penny, who just after the September 11 attacks
wishes she were younger in order to enlist in the American Army. This feeling fills her
every time she listens to the President, as she thinks that serving in the Army would
have granted her the opportunity to “show all those terrorists what Americans were
made of, how they were continuing the great history of this country, getting out there
and saving poor people from the oppression of living in their backward countries”
(280).
However, the waitress’s depiction of Arabs as backward and uncivilized
terrorists does not include Jassim. In a conversation with her flatmate, she claims that
her friend is “not some religious freak like them… Jassim is a good guy – he’s not like
them, shouldn’t be judged like them. But those people over there, they oppress women
and kill each other. They’re the ones who should be bombed” (281). Penny thus
considers that Jassim does not belong to the category that contains the supposed
enemies of the American nation, according to the official U. S. discourse. Even though
the American woman internalizes the Bush administration’s “war on terror” rhetoric,
she does not make use of the “us/them” binary in relation to Jassim. After all, her Arab
friend is a wealthy scientist who has nothing to do with the “others” – the dreadful
terrorists who deserve to be bombed.
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It is reasonable to assume that Jassim’s attraction to Penny is triggered by his
need to find refuge in someone who does not belong to his world. Although their
physical contact is restricted to some kisses, Penny is the strange white American
waitress who listens to him after he has been rejected by his colleagues and distanced
from his wife. In this respect, Steven Salaita rightly notes that “Jassim’s innate
attraction to Penny, then, arises from a certain feeling of alienation that he imagines
Penny can satisfy. Therefore, Penny’s attraction to Jassim arises from the same hope,
though she indicates that she is interested mainly in the lifestyle that Jassim’s income
might provide” (2011: 91). He adds that Halaby makes a balance between Penny’s
islamophobia and Jassim’s classism, which probably would not allow these two
characters to converge in different circumstances.
Thus, despite their difference, Jassim’s connection with this woman has
contributed to his exploration of this unknown face of America. The Wal-Mart
experience, for instance, is very telling as it brings him face to face with some Jordanian
immigrants who have not had the opportunity to prosper like him:
In one breath he was in the souq in Amman, a place he couldn’t stand, for
the same reason he wouldn’t have liked Wal-Mart if he hadn’t been
invited to go with Penny: too many poor people, too many products to
sift through, all of questionable quality. Too many people squishsquashing their overworked, coughing selves together. Whereas Jassim
had been eaten by the West, this woman and her husband had not left
home… He was so used to this easy American life, where you could kill
a child and the whole family didn’t come after you with demands for
justice, or at least an explanation. Where you could work with the same
people every day of your life and know nothing of them. Or they of you.
Where your wife could be pregnant and miscarry and not tell you. Where
you could want not to have children. No question: the West was neater,
tidier. One could control one’s life here so much more easily. (278)
Not only does the Wal-Mart visit allow Jassim to meet American working class subjects
but also Arab immigrants belonging to these lower classes. He makes a quick
comparison between himself and these people who remind him of the community that
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he has been distancing himself from during these long years in America. While Jassim
has adopted a Western integrating lifestyle, this Jordanian couple seems rather attached
to their homeland’s traditions. He asserts that he prefers living in America, though,
because he judges that life there is easier to control. However, he is proven wrong when
he ends up losing control over his life after the September 11 attacks and the subsequent
tragedies, mainly the car accident.
As I have argued, the accident has induced Jassim to have access to an invisible
part of America when he starts to drive aimlessly around the dead boy’s neighborhood.
He is shocked to see “pickup trucks and pink fences, shaved heads and snotty-nosed
children, food stamps, tattered smiles, ill-fitting false teeth, tobacco-stained fingers, and
fourteen-hour-shift bloodshot eyes” (275). He is unpleasantly surprised by the existence
of such poverty in a wealthy country like the United States of America. In this line,
encouraged by Penny, he visits the boy’s mother, Mary Parker, in order to apologize for
the accident and offer help. Once in the house, he is amazed by the poverty of Evan’s
family: “The living room was dark and thickly carpeted. Shadows of furniture
punctuated the room, but it was so dark he couldn’t see much beyond that” (196). Mary
explains the darkness of her living room by the fact that “for a long time my brother was
living with us, and he slept here. I hung blackout curtains so the sun wouldn’t wake
him, but I never got around to taking them down” (196). With small details such as this,
Halaby draws Jassim’s attention to the huge difference marking “this unwelcoming
American neighborhood” from “the more liberal streets where fear and hatred were
disguised” (201). In this way, he develops a new perception of America through the
lenses of its “social apartheid” (Banita, 249) on the on hand, and its racial divisions, on
the other.
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Jassim is forced to slow down his “America bulldozer style, an Arab in a
Mercedes, oblivious of the sizzling around him,” as he becomes “unsettled in his
beloved America” (Halaby 2007: 165). By the end of the novel, the Jordanian man has
lost everything America had promised him upon his arrival there as a student. After
enjoying the taste of success, prestige, and wealth, Jassim ends up deprived of all of
them, announcing the downfall of his American Dream. Even though he has integrated
well into American society, living by its rules, now he gets excluded from it because he
officially becomes a threat to national security because of his ethnic and religious
background. In this respect, Halaby observes that “wishes don’t come true for Arabs in
America” (184), despite the efforts they make to be accepted as normal American
citizens. Salwa’s efforts to try “to force everything to fit into an American tale” (159)
have also been in vain. Both she and her husband have left the Holy Land – the ancient
Promised Land – to follow the false promises of wealth and success in this other
American “Promised Land” (49).
In fact, the novel’s closing is ambiguous as it ends with a disfigured Salwa lying
on a hospital bed with Jassim by her side, ignorant of the motives of what has happened
to his wife. Thus, as Halaby’s narrator rightly points out,
There’s no “they lived happily ever after”?
“Happily ever after” happens only in American fairy tales.
Wasn’t this an American fairy tale?
It was and it wasn’t. (335)
The novel’s ending reveals the couple’s failure to negotiate the Third Space, and hence
to find a place of their own in America. From the beginning, Salwa and Jassim have
deliberately chosen to assimilate into upper-middle-class America and adopt its values
and its consumerist culture, while rapidly erasing their connections with the Arab
homeland. Their early economic success has led to their being completely devoted to
the fulfillment of their respective American Dreams, while they have not felt the need
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for a negotiated lifestyle combining both Arab and American values. Consequently,
they have lived on the margins of the Third Space, which has later precipitated their
speedy downfall. The absence of this in-between space has contributed to their fragility
and unpreparedness to confront the growing alienation and marginalization they have to
endure in the aftermath of September 11, provoking in this way, not only their
displacement, but also the collapse of their dreams and their life in America.
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CONCLUSION
317
318
CONCLUSION
In this dissertation, I have studied the heterogeneous nature of the Arab
American experience in the United States of America through the selection of four
novels by the contemporary writers Diana Abu-Jaber and Laila Halaby. I have focused
on these novelists’ de-construction of the essentialized frameworks of their
community’s subjectivity and the negotiation of an Arab American Third Space within
the context of multiethnic America. I have reached the conclusion that the complexity in
the themes and concerns addressed by this literature reveals its maturation as a crucial
medium for Arab Americans’ creative self-representation in their pursuit of
consolidating their sense of belonging to the American community while at the same
time emphasizing their links with their Arab heritage. In their attempts to challenge
generalized and limited portrayals, which often remain unchecked and unquestioned,
contemporary Arab American writers are also aware of the necessity not to go too far
the other way, and to balance self-criticism with criticism of these stereotypes. The five
chapters included in this dissertation portray the articulation of these ideas through the
selected novels by Abu-Jaber and Halaby.
The first chapter provides a historical and literary framework for the whole
dissertation, through which I have tried to trace the development of the Arab American
literary tradition in relation to the history of Arab presence in the United States for more
than a century. In my analysis of the different phases of this literature, it has become
clear to me that the writing of each period reflects the history of the community and the
individual circumstances of its members, and their efforts to give shape to a communal
body which will also be part of the American community. The early immigrants’
struggle to achieve white racial status at the beginning of the twentieth century, after
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their economic success and their consequent adoption of American values, explains the
obsession of early writers to prove themselves worthy in the American context. The
second generation of Arab American writers grew up in a highly assimilated community
with greatly diminished awareness of their Arab background, which tended to be absent
in their work published in the sixties. With the arrival of new politicized immigrants
with strong national links to their countries of origin, together with the events taking
place in the Middle East, especially the 1967 Arab Israeli war, the Americanized
generations started to acquire a renewed Arab ethnic consciousness. While this period
witnessed the appearance of an Arab American poetic production, waving between the
ethnic discourse and other interests, it paved the way for the coming of age of this
literary tradition, starting from the last decade of the twentieth century. Engaged with
ethnicity and the racialization of the Arab American experience, contemporary writers
are acutely aware of the vulnerability of their community in an age characterized by a
strong anti-Arab bias in the United States, especially after the September 11 terrorist
attacks. This new generation of Arab American writers has been publishing a growing
literary production, including fiction, memoirs, poetry and non-fiction, trying to
highlight the diversity, complexity, and also richness of the Arab American experience.
Acknowledging their Arab ethnic background, they try to consolidate their tradition
within the broad spectrum of multicultural America.
The second chapter is a theoretical framework which offers a definition of Homi
Bhabha’s concept of the Third Space, through which the scholar challenges ethnocentric
notions of selfhood and identity. He argues that the hybrid position destabilizes any
stable binary opposition or category because it constitutes a place where categories are
crossed, and where a space between defined subject positions is created. For this reason,
he deconstructs the pre-given conception of identity both at individual and collective
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levels, suggesting that it must rather be enunciated. The Third Space, therefore, provides
hybrid individuals with the possibility to create a space where they can maintain a
process of translation and negotiation of their difference. I have tried to demonstrate that
contemporary Arab American literature articulates Bhabha’s concept of the Third Space
through the presentation of the works of Lawrence Joseph, Suheir Hammad, Randa
Jarrar and Rabih Alameddine. Their focus on ethnicity mirrors the proclamation of
hybridity as the essence of an Arab American identity, being an exclusive component of
the mosaic of ethnic America. Diana Abu-Jaber and Laila Halaby share these same
perceptions that are clearly transmitted through the novels that I have selected, which
reveal how these writers straddle both sides of the hyphen through the validation of both
their American identity and their Arab origin.
In the third chapter, my analysis of the construction of female Arab American
identities concludes with the idea of the multilayered subjectivity and the heterogeneity
of Arab American women. In Arabian Jazz (1993) by Diana Abu-Jaber, the two
Jordanian American sisters Jemorah and Melvina face the task of negotiating the
multiple sets of duality they find themselves in: two cultures, two families, two
countries, two identities, and two languages. Their performance as young Arab
American women in the United States is shaped and re-shaped by these elements on a
daily basis. To start with, the American environment of a small poor white
neighborhood where they have grown up is a profoundly alienating frame which
contributes to the displacement of both sisters. Their journey is further problematized by
the early death of their American mother, which has led to their being rejected by the
American part of the family. Abu-Jaber criticizes American social behavior based on
stereotypes and essentializations through her portrayal of attitudes of supremacy among
white Americans, not only middle-class but, ironically, lower-class too, who try to
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compensate for their inferior economic status by exhibiting racial superiority to “sand
niggers,” in this case. However, the jazz band where the girls’ father Matussem plays
drums offers him the possibility to overcome some of the racism he is suffering in his
work and social entourage, and to open up lines of communication to working-class
Anglo-Americans. Jazz emerges as the major element which compensates Matussem for
his feelings of loss and displacement. It also shows Abu-Jaber’s intention to depict the
possibility of a common ground between Arab Americans and African Americans.
The trauma of the mother’s death is deeply connected to the girls’ consciousness
of themselves, not only as individuals, but as Arab Americans as well, because it has
deprived them of a natural doorway into America. Consequently, Matussem’s sister,
Fatima, tries to fill this space through her attempts to reproduce the oppressive models
of her own gendered memory, translated here into her obsession to marry off her nieces
to Arab men, which would guarantee the continuity of the homeland’s reconstructed
ways. The novelist uses the aunt’s attempts to intervene in her nieces’ construction of
their Arab American female identity in order to criticize the idealization of the
homeland’s culture, thus expressing contemporary Arab American literature’s
transcendence of the nostalgic phase and its engagement with self-critique of its own
community. Unlike his sister, Matussem is portrayed as a free-spirited and
understanding father who challenges the old ways and imposes no gender restrictions on
his daughters.
The mixed messages received by the sisters situate them in a cultural borderland.
While Melvina is aware of her dual sense of belonging and of the in-between space
where she is placed, Jemorah has been hesitating between which of those two territories
to jump into. Identifying herself with her profession as a nurse, Melvina stands at the
same distance from her Arab and American parts, as she is the one who decides what to
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praise and what to criticize, what to take and what to reject. She seems very American
as she emerges as an independent woman who is extremely dedicated to her job, and
who dreams of owning her own Harley motorcycle one day. She also appreciates many
elements of her Arab heritage, such as Arabic that she perceives as “the purest state of
emotional energy” (Abu-Jaber 1993: 304). In this way, she has found her own pattern of
identity negotiation allowing her to enjoy both sides of the hyphen. Jemorah, however,
has undergone a more complex process of self-identification due to her suspension
between both sides of the hyphen. Traumatized by her mother’s death, she is unable to
overcome the feelings of loss and displacement, and to get on with her life. She is
haunted by her failure to find a home in America without her mother’s presence. She is
also portrayed as a passive individual who depends on others to define who she is.
While she is Arab because her family defines her as such, she complains that her
mother’s premature death has prevented her from having access to her American half.
She moves from one extreme decision to another when she accepts Aunt Fatima’s offer
to marry her cousin and go back to Jordan, only to suddenly change her mind and
decide to stay in America and go back to university. This unexpected shift reveals that
she has not really resolved her ambivalence, but has decided to give America another
opportunity to be the stage for her identity negotiation in order to free herself of her
sense of alienation and find a space of her own where she can enjoy her hyphenated
identity.
In my study of West of the Jordan (2003) by Laila Halaby, I have tried to
describe and illustrate the writer’s intention to challenge the widespread homogeneous
depiction of Arab women in mainstream American consciousness through the portrayal
of four cousins whose lives oscillate between America and Palestine. Mawal is the only
cousin who remains in her Palestinian village of Nawara, which makes her represent the
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voice of the ones left behind. She is portrayed as the keeper of the memory of Palestine
through her embroidery and also her stories. Her character allows Halaby to celebrate
Palestinian traditions through her focus on the embroidery of traditional costumes,
which constitute an expression of Palestinian national identity. She is also a reference
for all her stories about the people of Nawara, whether living in the homeland or
elsewhere, mainly the women, which reveals the network of solidarity that has been
created around the embroidery rituals.
Soraya is portrayed as a rebel. Living in Los Angeles from an early age, she
defies her parents’ homeland rules when she is out of her family’s reach and behaves
like her fellow American teens. The restrictions imposed by her family force her to lead
a double life where she is a sexy and exotic young lady who enjoys her sexual freedom.
She uses her body to challenge not only her family and community, but also all the
moral values she is told to follow. She repeatedly claims the hybrid construction of her
subjectivity, describing herself as a “new breed,” and an “in between.” At the same
time, she expresses her disenchantment with her frustrated attempts to belong to
America because she is aware that mainstream perception of her community prevents
her from being fully accepted in this country. Her unwillingness to perform the
traditional Palestinian woman’s role incites her to find her own negotiated in-between
space where she can live out her difference and celebrate the new breed status she
claims for herself.
Khadija is the American-born cousin who is also struggling to negotiate a
complicated second generation Arab American experience. Insisting on her
Americanness, she does not accept her hyphenated identity because she refuses to
cultivate bonds with Palestine, which is the homeland she only learns about through her
family’s memories. However, unlike Soraya, she does not rebel against the conservative
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upbringing she has received, which makes her realize that she is different from her
American friends. Khadija’s complicated relationship with her alcoholic and abusive
father makes her journey towards self-identification more difficult. However, the day
she calls the police seeking protection from her father’s violence marks a turning point
in the girl’s attitude because it signifies the end of her passiveness, and the beginning of
an attitude of independence as she tries to find solutions for her dysfunctional family.
This experience may offer her the opportunity to sort out the components of her
complex subjectivity in order to come to terms with her hyphenated identity.
Hala is the cousin who metaphorically performs the role of a bridge between the
Middle East and America because she has succeeded in developing a double sense of
belonging to both cultures. Her short stay in Jordan after three years in the United States
marks her reconciliation with her past and origins. She has the opportunity to rediscover
her country’s ancient history and civilization, as well as Arab family values, which
leads her to open her eyes to the possibility of negotiating both worlds she belongs to.
The blending of these two spaces is symbolized by the traditional Palestinian roza
(embroidered dress) and the gold charm of Palestine she wears the day she returns to
America. She realizes the necessity of finding a balance between her Arab roots and her
American present, and thus the fundamental role of the memories of the homeland. Now
she is willing to put into practice the negotiation of her hybridity in her American
context without forgetting anything she has left behind in Jordan as well as Palestine.
These four cousins therefore give voice to thousands of young women with a
Palestinian background to tell their unheard stories. The novel challenges mainstream
homogenous depiction of Arab and Arab American women, and offers instead a
glimpse of the multiplicity of their experience.
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The fourth chapter deals with the creative strategies used by Diana Abu-Jaber in
Crescent (2003) to resist essentialist misrepresentations of Arabs in America. In her
deconstruction of these stereotypes which conceal the complexity and diversity of her
community, she presents images and depictions of the Middle East that the average
American is not used to. Her portrayal of Iraq as the cradle of civilization, with a special
focus on its contribution to the world heritage, is interesting as it is so different from the
image of this county often transmitted by news channels. The Arab male characters
depicted include students, academics, university teachers and poets, among others. For
instance, the Iraqi exile Hanif is presented as a charismatic intellectual and scholar, as
well as an attractive and admirable lover. In this way, the novelist provides a humanized
image of Iraqi and Arab people in general. Moreover, her focus on the cultural field is
highly significant because we find references to Arab literature, history and music
throughout the novel, showing her commitment to dealing with the issue of the image of
Arabs in America.
In my analysis of the in-between spaces provided by the novel, I have drawn
attention to the fact that the Arab restaurant plays a fundamental role because, in
addition to being a re-creation of home for the Arab characters, it offers a space for
constant border crossings and cultural negotiations. It brings together people from
different ethnic and cultural origins to share the food cooked by the Iraqi American chef
Sirine. Most importantly, Abu-Jaber focuses on finding a common ground with Latino
communities in particular, through the two Latino workers in the restaurant. Here, she
portrays the peaceful coexistence of different ethnic groups, highlighting the variety of
individual as well as communal experiences, which are part of the ethnic components of
American society. One of the significant examples of blending flavors and cultures is
the Arab Thanksgiving organized by the chef, whose hybrid menu includes mainly
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Middle Eastern but also American and Latino dishes. The omnipresence of food in this
novel and the merging of different culinary aromas illustrate the negotiation processes
undergone by ethnic groups in America, fusing the traditions of the homelands with the
newly acquired customs of the host country. To conclude, Crescent (2003) is a hybrid
novel, which merges the Middle Eastern oral tradition of storytelling with the form of
the Western novel in order to emphasize hybridity as its central discourse. The novel
itself is a Third Space where ethnic border crossings provide a site where traditions and
identities are being negotiated in order to create new hybrid traditions and identities,
shaping, in this way, the cultural landscape of America today.
In the last chapter of this dissertation, dedicated to the study of Once in a
Promised Land (2007) by Laila Halaby, I have examined the experience of a Jordanian
American couple in the aftermath of the September 11 terrorist attacks in the United
States and the collapse of their American dream. I have concluded that Salwa and
Jassim’s journey reflects their failure to negotiate the Third Space and to carve a place
of their own in America. They have both voluntarily taken part in an Americanization
process seducing them away from their cultural and religious roots, and thoroughly
immersing them in the consumerist comfort of America’s capitalist ideals. Their
professional success and wealth makes them believe that accumulating luxuries
symbolizes their adherence to the American upper-middle-class, and thus puts an
official seal on their belonging to the American community. However, September 11
becomes a turning point in their lives because of their fragility and unpreparedness to
face the growing marginalization and alienation imposed on them. In an atmosphere of
suffocating patriotism, added to an accelerated racialization and profiling of Arab and
Muslim Americans, Salwa and Jassim also become increasingly estranged from one
another, which places their marriage and their very presence in America on shaky
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ground. They have willingly lived on the margins of the Third Space because their
devotion to the fulfillment of their respective American dreams has concealed their need
for a negotiated lifestyle merging their Arab background with their American present.
Halaby is critical to this kind of false belonging to the United States, in which the
couple abandon the homeland’s values in return for a consumer citizenship based on the
promise of wealth and prosperity. Despite their efforts to fit in, this national crisis
instigates their exclusion. Suffocated by the “war on terror” atmosphere, Salwa becomes
involved in an affair with an American co-worker, and ends up badly beaten and
disfigured by him. Because of his ethnic and religious origin, Jassim, the accomplished
hydrologist, becomes a ‘high-risk’ citizen and loses his job. In different ways, they both
represent thousands of people with Arab and Muslim backgrounds whose own place in
American society is called into question after September 11. Thus, the novel portrays
the aftermath of these attacks from an Arab American perspective, which reflects the
writer’s engagement with the destabilization of the mainstream anti-Arab discourse.
I intend to continue my research into this field of the Arab American literary
tradition because I believe there is a need to fill the critical gap that exists in this area. I
am particularly interested in the works of some Lebanese American writers who depict
the civil war in Lebanon (1975-1990), such as Rabih Alameddine and Patricia Sarrafian
Ward. In addition, I would like to explore the North African presence in the United
States through the works of Moroccan American novelist Laila Lalami, whose novel
The Moor’s Account (2014) has been highly acclaimed. I also aim to move south, as it
were, in order to study the history of Arab immigration in Latin America, and at the
same time, examine the literary production of some writers of Arab descent, such as the
Colombian writer Luis Fayad. My long-term goal would be to embark on a detailed
comparative study of the Arab presence in the United States and Latin America.
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SUMMARY IN SPANISH
[RESUMEN EN ESPAÑOL]
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330
RESUMEN
NEGOTIATING THE THIRD SPACE IN THE ARAB AMERICAN FICTION
OF DIANA ABU-JABER AND LAILA HALABY
LA NEGOCIACIÓN DEL TERCER ESPACIO EN LAS NOVELAS ÁRABES
NORTEAMERICANAS DE DIANA ABU-JABER Y LAILA HALABY
La presente tesis doctoral estudia la heterogeneidad de la experiencia árabe
norteamericana en Estados Unidos, a través de una selección de cuatro novelas de las
escritoras contemporáneas Diana Abu-Jaber y Laila Halaby. Asimismo, se analiza el
discurso literario de estas dos autoras, se deconstruyen los aspectos esencialistas de la
subjetividad referentes a su comunidad y se estudia la negociación de un Tercer Espacio
árabe norteamericano en el contexto de la realidad multiétnica en Estados Unidos. La
complejidad de los temas y las preocupaciones que muestran estas novelas revelan la
madurez de esta tradición literaria, siendo esta literatura un medio crucial para la
autorepresentación creativa de los norteamericanos de origen árabe quienes buscan
consolidar su pertenencia a la comunidad norteamericana y, al mismo tiempo, poner de
manifiesto sus vínculos con su herencia árabe. En sus intentos de desafiar las imágenes
arquetípicas y limitadas, que a menudo permanecen incuestionables y no verificadas,
estas escritoras son conscientes de la necesidad de encontrar un equilibrio entre la
autocrítica y los estereotipos falsos sobre su comunidad. Los cinco capítulos de esta
tesis doctoral analizan e ilustran estas ideas en las novelas seleccionadas de Diana AbuJaber y Laila Halaby.
En el Capítulo 1, “The Arab American Experience in the United States of
America” [“La experiencia árabe norteamericana en Estados Unidos”], se estudia la
tradición literaria árabe norteamericana desde principios del siglo XX hasta hoy en día.
Es un marco histórico y literario en el cual se analizan las diferentes fases históricas de
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la presencia árabe en Estados Unidos y la producción literaria de cada época. El
desarrollo de esta literatura refleja la historia árabe norteamericana y las diferentes
circunstancias que empujaron a los escritores de esta comunidad a crear nuevos espacios
para hacer llegar sus voces. Este recorrido se inicia con los primeros inmigrantes árabes
que comenzaron a llegar desde la Gran Siria a las costas americanas a finales del siglo
XIX. En este periodo se analiza la historia de los vendedores ambulantes árabes que
lograron establecer sus propios negocios y terminaron siendo asimilados a la clase
media de la sociedad norteamericana, adaptándose a sus normas, mientras que, al
mismo tiempo, luchaban por su condición racial como blancos. En este periodo
aparecieron los escritores emigrados que escribían tanto en árabe como en inglés y los
que pertenecían principalmente al movimiento literario Al Mahjar, como es el caso de
Kahlil Gibran (1883-1931), Ameen Rihani (1876-1931), y Mikhail Naimy (1889-1988)
que fundaron la Liga Literaria de Nueva York en 1920. Herederos de dos tradiciones
culturales y literarias, pretendían desempeñar el papel de intermediarios culturales en su
intento de no solo crear puntos de encuentro filosóficos entre Oriente y Occidente, sino
de fusionarlos.
La segunda generación de escritores árabes norteamericanos creció en una época
de gran asimilación cultural como consecuencia de la falta de comunicación con la
madre patria y de las políticas de los Estados Unidos que limitaron la inmigración hasta
1965. Por consiguiente, los hijos de la primera generación de inmigrantes sirios no
hablaban árabe y tenían un conocimiento limitado de la herencia cultural de sus
antepasados. Las obras de escritores como Vance Bourjaily (1922-2010) y William
Blatty (1928- ) encarnan la culminación del proceso de asimilación puesto que muestran
una gran ambivalencia hacia su etnicidad y mantienen una gran distancia con respeto a
su identidad árabe.
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La segunda y tercera olas de inmigración árabe a Estados Unidos se iniciaron en
1967 y se han prolongado hasta la actualidad. El cambio más llamativo de estos
movimientos migratorios fue la llegada de un gran número de profesionales muy
preparados y universitarios de diferentes partes del mundo árabe. La presencia de estos
nuevos inmigrantes politizados y con fuertes vínculos nacionales, además de los hechos
ocurridos en Oriento Medio, especialmente la guerra árabe-israelí de 1967, marcaron el
surgimiento de una conciencia étnica árabe entre las generaciones americanizadas. Su
decepción por el apoyo oficial de Estados Unidos a Israel y la creciente hostilidad
antiárabe en los medios de comunicación americanos provocaron que los miembros de
esta comunidad empezaran a identificarse como árabes. En este periodo floreció una
considerable producción literaria más bien orientada hacia la poesía en la que se
abordaban temas étnicos entre otros.
La tercera fase de la tradición literaria árabe norteamericana estuvo marcada por
un cambio significativo hacia la escritura en prosa, acompañada por un compromiso con
la etnicidad y la racialización de la experiencia árabe en Estados Unidos. Los escritores
contemporáneos son conscientes de la vulnerabilidad de su comunidad en una era
caracterizada por los prejuicios antiárabes en Estados Unidos, especialmente después de
los ataques terroristas del 11 de septiembre. Esta nueva generación de escritores árabes
norteamericanos ha publicado una producción literaria significativa que aborda la
diversidad, la complejidad y también la riqueza de la experiencia árabe norteamericana.
Hay que señalar que estos escritores reconocen sus orígenes árabes y consolidan su
tradición dentro del amplio espectro multicultural de Estados Unidos.
El Capítulo 2, “Theorizing Contemporary Arab American Literature” [“La
teorización de la literatura árabe norteamericana contemporánea”], plantea el marco
teórico de esta tesis, en el cual se define el concepto del Tercer Espacio de Homi
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Bhabha para luego redefinirlo según el discurso árabe norteamericano. El crítico parte
de la idea de que la hibridación es una experiencia mixta que provoca la no pertenencia
de los individuos a ninguna posición unificada o estable y, como consecuencia, su
subjetividad es múltiple e inestable. Con este constructo teórico, Bhabha desafía las
nociones etnocéntricas de la identidad. Del mismo modo, el crítico de origen hindú
indica que la identidad, ya sea individual o colectiva, no está predefinida porque tiene
que ser enunciada. Por tanto, el Tercer Espacio ofrece a los individuos híbridos un
espacio donde pueden mantener un proceso de traducción y negociación de sus
diferencias.
La segunda sección de este capítulo intenta demonstrar que la literatura árabe
norteamericana contemporánea articula este mismo concepto a través algunas de las
obras de Lawrence Joseph, Suheir Hammad, Randa Jarrar y Rabih Alameddine. La
perspectiva sobre el discurso étnico que presentan estos escritores refleja la
proclamación de la hibridación como un atributo de la identidad árabe norteamericana,
siendo éste un aspecto diferencial del llamado mosaico étnico de los Estados Unidos.
Las escritoras Diana Abu-Jaber y Laila Halaby comparten esta visión a través de su
discurso literario que plantea la compleja negociación de un espacio intermedio que
hace posible la convivencia entre los orígenes culturales árabes y la necesaria
adaptación a la sociedad y cultura norteamericanas.
El Capítulo 3, “The Construction of Female Arab American Identities and the
Narratives of Displacement in Arabian Jazz by Diana Abu-Jaber and West of the Jordan
by Laila Halaby”, [“La construcción de las identidades femeninas árabes
norteamericanas y las narrativas de desplazamiento en Arabian Jazz de Diana AbuJaber y West of the Jordan de Laila Halaby”], propone el análisis de la multiplicidad y
la heterogeneidad de la identidad femenina norteamericana de origen árabe. Este
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capítulo se inicia con el estudio de Arabian Jazz (1993) de Diana Abu-Jaber en el que se
examina el recorrido de Jemorah y Melvina, dos hermanas de origen jordano, en la
negociación de las dualidades a las que se enfrentan: dos idiomas, dos familias, dos
países y dos identidades. Hay que señalar que su desarrollo como jóvenes mujeres
árabes y norteamericanas en Estados Unidos se está formando y reformulando en su
diario devenir. El hecho de crecer en un barrio con una mayoría blanca pobre y la
prematura muerte de la madre americana contribuyen al desplazamiento de las
hermanas. Asimismo, se analiza el papel de la parte jordana de la familia por medio de
lo que considero el intento de la escritora de desmitificar la madre patria a través del
personaje de la tía en su esfuerzo de reproducir en sus sobrinas los modelos represivos
de su pasado étnico idealizado. Además, se estudia una versión híbrida de la
masculinidad árabe norteamericana por medio del personaje de Matussem cuyo interés
en la música de jazz afecta a su proceso de negociación como hombre y también como
padre. En este contexto, Melvina, la enfermera a tiempo completo, y Jemorah la
soñadora deben llevar a cabo la compleja negociación de su identidad.
La segunda sección de este capítulo examina la novela West of the Jordan
(2003) de Laila Halaby y la presentación de las narraciones de desplazamiento de cuatro
primas de origen palestino. Cada capítulo que narran es el lugar donde exponen sus
identidades en proceso de negociación como mujeres árabes y / o americanas, teniendo
en cuenta las diferencias personales, culturales y económicas de cada una de ellas.
Mawal es la única prima que vive en Palestina, lo que la convierte en la voz de los que
se han quedado atrás y la que mantiene la memoria de Palestina. Las demás jóvenes,
Soraya, Khadija y Hala tienen que negociar su espacio intermedio en su contexto
norteamericano. En este sentido, las cuatro primas dan voz a miles de mujeres de origen
Palestino para contar sus historias inéditas. Por consiguiente, la novela desafía la
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representación homogénea de las mujeres árabes y las árabes norteamericanas en los
medios de comunicación en Estados Unidos y revela la multiplicidad de sus
experiencias.
El Capítulo 4, “Crescent and the Creative Strategies of Resistance” [“Crescent y
la estrategias creativas de resistencia”], analiza las nuevas estrategias de representación
sugeridas por Diana Abu-Jaber en Crescent (2003) como medio para resistir las
representaciones falsas y esencialistas de los árabes en Estados Unidos. La escritora
deconstruye el estereotipo del terrorista asociado con las personas de origen árabe a
través de la presentación de intelectuales urbanos, académicos, poetas y universitarios
que no están presentes en el imaginario norteamericano. De igual modo, la novela
presenta una imagen humanizada de Iraq, al reflexionar sobre su patrimonio histórico y
cultural. Además, se pueden encontrar numerosas referencias a la cultura de Oriente
Medio, especialmente a la literatura y la música. En este capítulo se estudian también
los espacios intermedios donde los personajes híbridos articulan su individualidad y
buscan estrategias de negociación. En este sentido, el restaurante árabe no sólo funciona
como un espacio donde recrear la tierra natal en la frontera étnica sino también como un
territorio para otras negociaciones culturales. En esta misma línea, la comida se
representa como un vínculo humano que construye puentes con las diferentes
comunidades étnicas. Así pues, la novela misma es un tercer espacio donde las
tradiciones y las identidades se negocian para crear nuevas tradiciones e identidades
híbridas, y dar forma de esta manera, al paisaje cultural actual de Estados Unidos.
Finalmente, el último capítulo de esta tesis “Once in a Promised Land: The
Collapse of the American Dream”, [“Once in a Promised Land: el colapso del sueño
americano”], está dedicado al estudio de la novela Once in a Promised Land (2007) de
Laila Halaby, ya que es una de las primeras obras literarias árabes norteamericanas en
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abordar las consecuencias directas de los ataques terroristas del 11 de septiembre de
2001 en las vidas de muchos individuos de origen árabe o musulmán en Estados
Unidos. Esta novela explora la noción del sueño americano desde una perspectiva árabe
norteamericana en una época caracterizada por la racialización acelerada y la
discriminación de los ciudadanos originarios de Oriente Medio. Este capítulo analiza la
búsqueda de este sueño a través de la experiencia de una pareja de origen jordano que
ha optado por asumir la cultura consumista de Estados Unidos como estilo de vida y
disfrutar de sus perspectivas aparentemente brillantes en la tierra prometida
norteamericana, a costa de negar sus tradiciones árabes. Halaby retrata el
desplazamiento sufrido por la pareja después de los ataques terroristas, en un país en el
que comienzan a cuestionar su propio sentido de pertenencia a la comunidad americana,
lo que lleva al fracaso de su matrimonio, y a convertir su sueño americano en una
pesadilla. En este sentido, la novela proyecta la crisis de la pareja en su negociación del
Tercer Espacio y en la búsqueda de un espacio propio en Estados Unidos.
Las futuras líneas de investigación que se abren a partir de esta tesis doctoral
son, por un lado, seguir con el estudio de la tradición literaria árabe norteamericana
porque considero que es necesario contribuir a un corpus crítico en este campo de
estudio. Por otro lado, estoy muy interesada en abordar las obras de escritores
norteamericanos de origen libanés que indagan la problemática de la guerra civil en el
Líbano (1975-1990), como es el caso de Rabih Alameddine y Patricia Sarrafian Ward.
Asimismo, quisiera investigar la presencia norteafricana en Estados Unidos a partir de
las obras de la escritora de origen marroquí Laila Lalami cuya novela The Moor´s
Account (2014) ha sido muy aclamada por la crítica. Por último, me propongo también
dirigirme hacia el sur y estudiar la historia de la inmigración árabe en Latinoamérica, y
al mismo tiempo, examinar la producción literaria de algunos escritores de origen árabe
337
como el escritor colombiano Luis Fayad. En resumen, tengo la intención de iniciar un
estudio comparativo de la presencia árabe en Estados Unidos y Latinoamérica.
338
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